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Idylls of the King 

A Spiritual Interpretation 



BY 



WALTER SPENCE 

Author of "''Back to Christ"* 




NEW YORK 
COCHRANE PUBLISHING CO. 

1909 






Copyright, 1909, by 
COCHRANE PUBLISHING CO. 



HA 24G574 
SEP M 1909 



(?9f 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

Accept this old imperfect tale, 

New-old, and shadowing sense at war with soul, 

Ideal manhood closed in real man, 

Rather than that gray king whose name, a ghost, 

Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, 

And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still. 

To an old sweetheart of mine, 

Who showed me the beauty of Tennyson, 

Who inspired me to write these chapters, 

Who loves the Idylls and embodies their ideals, 

The Mother of Enid and Elaine and the Knight LeRoy. 

The Idylls of the King are twelve stories of King Arthur 
and his Knights of the Round Table. The origin of these 
Arthurian legends is lost in obscurity. But that there was 
a historical Arthur, as a nucleus around which these leg- 
ends gathered, seems well established. He is believed to 
have lived in the sixth century of the Christian Era. In 
an old Welsh elegy on "The Death of Geraint," one Arthur 
is mentioned as "the commander of :armies, the director of 
the works of war." Carbdoc, x an early historian, tells that 
Arthur was a king of Devonshire and Cornwall, who waged 
war with the king of Scotland and also with the king of 
Somersetshire, who had carried off his queen. A still 
earlier writer, Xennius, who lived somewhere between the 

1 



# Introduction 

eighth and tenth centuries, also tells of Arthur, and gives 
a list of twelve battles against the Saxons. Still stronger 
evidence is the Arthurian place-names which still exist in 
west Wales, Strathclyde, and Lothian. Carlion, or Caer- 
leon, mentioned in the legends as one of Arthur's capitals, 
is identified with Caerleon-on-Usk in Wales. Camelot, his 
chief seat and stronghold, is believed to be identical with 
the remains of an old fortress in Somersetshire. In the 
time of Malory these ruins still bore the name of Camelot, 
and was thus described: "Four ditches and as many walls 
surrounded a central space of about thirty acres, where 
foundations and remains of walls might be seen, and 
whence Roman pavements, urns, coins, and other relics 
have been found up to the present time." In maps as late 
as 1727 it was called the Castle of Camellek, but after that 
it came to be called Cadbury Castle. The villages near by 
still bear the names of Queen-Camel, East-Camel, and 
West-Camel, and near by flows the Elver Camel. Arthur's 
bridge and Arthur's well are still pointed out by the peas- 
ants, who say that sometimes amid the ruins a king may 
be seen in the midst of his knights. Mr. Nennet quotes 
a Cadbury peasant as follows: "Folks do say that on the 
night of the full moon King Arthur and his men ride round 
the hill, and their horses are shod with silver, and a silver 
shoe has been found in the track where they do ride, and 
when they have ridden round the hill they stop to water 
their horses at the wishing well." A writer of about 1212 
relates that the foresters of Britain tell that at noon, or at 
midnight when the moon is full and shining, they often 
see a company of hunters with their dogs and horns, who, 
when questioned, say they belong to the household of 
Arthur % * These local traditions confirm the conclusion 
that there was an historical Arthur who reigned in south- 
west Britain, whose name, character, and exploits were the 



l/ 



Introduction - 3 

germs of the Arthurian legends. This real Arthur was 
evidently only a local hero, and may have been quite differ- 
ent from the legendary Arthur. But that there existed a 
real Arthur as the germ of the legendary Arthur there 
seems little room to doubt. And we may well believe that 
his character and prowess were such as to be in keeping 
with the legends which have clustered about his name. 
^— The Grail legend is a later addition to the Arthurian 
cycle. Just how it originated is not known. Mr. Nutt 
traces it back to a pagan origin. The sword, the lance, 
and the vessel were three magic talismans in Celtic myth- 
ology. Bran was the ruler of the Other World, and had 
charge of these talismans. Mr. Nutt supposes that there 
was at Glastonbury a temple to Bran, which, when Chris- 
tianity superseded paganism, was transformed into a 
church. Then St. Joseph took the place of Bran and the 
talismans were given a Christian significance. The sword 
is now the sword with which Joseph was wounded, the 
lance is that which pierced the side of Jesus, and the vessel 
is the bowl which contained the paschal lamb at the Last 
Supper. According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicode- 
mus, Joseph of Arimathaea took the vessel from the Upper 
Eoom, and in it caught the blood from Christ's wounds 
when the body was taken from the cross. When he was 
imprisoned by the Jews forty years, the Grail kept him 
alive without food, and gave him spiritual enlightenment. 
The British legends continue the story. Philip, the Evan- 
gelist, sends Joseph to Britain, whither he with some com- 
panions proceeds, taking with them the sword, the lance, 
and the Holy Grail containing the sacred blood, and settle 
at Glastonbury. After Joseph's death the Grail, with the 
sword and lance, disappears and is hidden from the sight 
of men till he who is worthy shall find it. Thence began 
the search for the lost Grail. It is believed that Walter 



4 Introduction 

Map, who lived in the twelfth century, was the first to give 
form to the Grail legend and connect it with the story of 
Arthur. In Malory's account, three of Arthur's knights, 
Bors, Percivale, and Galahad, find the Grail and the other 
talismans in the enchanted castle of Carbonek. There 
Joseph appears to them and prepares to administer the 
sacrament with the holy vessel, but Joseph vanishes, and 
, out of the vessel comes Christ Himself, and takes the Grail 
and feeds them therefrom; "and they thought it was so 
sweet that it was marvelous to tell." And Galahad is com- 
manded to take the Grail and carry it hence to "the 
city of Sarros, in the spiritual place." 

These legends constitute the framework of Tennyson's 
Idylls. But he does more than simply retell the old stories. 
He selects the best, throwing aside all that is not germane 
to his purpose. And he alters them and adds to them, cre- 
ating new characters and new adventures, recasting and 
recoloring the old stories wherever necessary to the end he 
has in view. Some critics have censured him for the lib- 
erty he has taken with the stories and the characters. Sir 
Edward Strachey, in his introduction to Le Morte Darthur, 
expresses what ought to be our feeling in regard to this: 
"There are some of us who in their childhood lived in, or 
can at least remember, some old house, with its tower and 
turret stairs, its hall with the screen, and the minstrel's 
gallery, and the armor where it was hung up by him who 
last wore it; the paneled chambers, the lady's bower, and 
the chapel, and all the quaint, rambling passages and steps 
which led from one to another of these. And when in after 
years he comes to this same old house, and finds that it has 
all been remodeled, enlarged, furnished and beautified to 
meet the needs and the tastes of modern life, he feels that 
this is not the very home of his childhood, and that a 
glory has departed from the scenes he once knew ; and yet, 



Introduction 5 

if the changes have been made with true judgment, and 
only with a rightful recognition of the claim that the 
modern life should have full scope for itself while pre- 
serving all that was possibleVof the old, though not letting 
itself be sacrificed or even cramped or limited, for its sake : 
if he is reasonable, he will acknowledge that it was well that 
the old order should yield place to the new, or at least make 
room for it at its side. And such are the thoughts and 
sentiments with which the lover of the old Morte Arthur 
will, if he is also a student of the growth of our national 
life and character, read the new Idylls of the King" Ten- 
nyson's great purpose gives him license thus to use the old 
legends. His purpose is ethical and spiritual, and he 
bends everything to this. He is writing not simply to 
entertain, but to instruct and warn and inspire. The 
Idylls is a great moral and religious poem. 

But in what way did the poet mean to use these stories ? 
As allegories or parables? The former, says Stopford 
Brooke. " The poem is an allegory of the soul of man war- 
ring with sense, and passing on its way through life to 
death and through death to resurrection. The great rulers 
of the kingdom of human nature — the intellect, the eon- 
science, the will, the imagination, the divine spirit in man 
— are shadowed forth in mystic personages. The historic 
powers which stand outside the soul and help it to reign 
and work — the Church, the Law, the great Graces of God — 
are also embodied. . . . Arthur is the rational soul, 
coming mysteriously from heaven and washed into Merlin's 
arms by a great wave. Merlin, who educates him, is intel- 
lectual power, with all the magic of science. Arthur's 
kingship is opposed by the brutal and sensual powers in 
human nature, but the soul beats them down, and lets in 
light and justice over the waste places of human nature 
where the ape, the tiger, and the bandit lurk. Guinevere 



6 Introduction* 

i& the heart, and all we mean by the term. The soul to do 
its work must be knit to the heart in noble marriage — 
Arthur must be wed to Guinevere. The Knights of the 
Round Table are the high faculties in man whom the soul 
builds into order around it, to do its just and reforming 
will." This is the poet's plan which Mr. Brooke sees in the 
poem, and he brands the plan as a mistake, and the efforts 
of the poet to carry out this allegorical plan he says "are 
failures, but they are gigantic struggles for success." He 
shows the absurdity and futility of trying to find an alle- 
gorical meaning to every part of the poem, claims that the 
allegory limps and breaks down, and so concludes that the 
poem, in its plan and purpose, is largely a failure. 

But was this the poet's plan? Did he set out to make 
an allegory pure and simple? Is it not possible that Mr 
Brooke has only knocked down a man of straw of his own 
manufacture? Over against his view we may set that of 
Henry VanDyke. He holds that Tennyson intended thesr 
stories, not as allegories but as parables. He calls atten 
tion to the distinction between an allegory and a parable. 
An allegory "is a work in which the figures and character 
are confessedly unreal, a masquerade in which the acton 
are not men and women, but virtues and vices dressed up 
in human costume. The distinguishing mark of allegory 
is personification. It does not deal with actual persons, 
but with abstract qualities which are treated as if they were 
persons, and made to speak and act as if alive. It moves, 
therefore, altogether in a dream-world; it is not only im- 
probable but impossible ; at a touch its figures dissolve into 
thin air." A parable is just the reverse of this ; "if instead 
of a virtue representing a person, the poet gave us 
a person embodying and representing a virtue; if in- 
stead of the oppositions and attractions of abstract 
qualities, we had the trials and conflicts and loves of 



Intboductiost 7 

real men and women in whom these qualities were living 
and working," then we would have a parable. In an alle- 
gory the persons are personifications of abstract virtues and 
vices; in a parable the persons embody virtues and vices. 
In an allegory an abstraction is dressed up to look like a 
person ; in a parable the abstraction becomes incarnate in a 
person. With this distinction in view Mr. VanDyke de- 
clares, "The poem is not an allegory but a parable." "The 
attempt to interpret the poem as a strict allegory breaks 
down at once and spoils the story. Suppose you say that 
Arthur is ' Conscience, and Guinevere is the Flesh, and 
Merlin is the Intellect; then pray what is Lancelot, and 
what is Geraint, and what is Vivien? What business has 
the Conscience to fall in love with the Flesh? What 
attraction has Vivien for the Intellect without any pas- 
sion? If Merlin is not a man, 'Que diable allait-il faire 
dans cette galere?' The whole affair becomes absurd, un- 
real, incomprehensible, uninteresting. " However, he says, 
"There are a great many purely allegorical figures and 
passages in it." Such, for instance, as the Lady of the 
Lake, Excalibur, the Three Queens, the visions of Perci- 
vale, and the five figures carved upon the rock. This 
writer takes the view of VanDyke rather than of Brooke. 
The Idylls are more parable than allegory. And yet I 
think there is more of the allegorical than Dr. VanDyke 
admits. The poem is neither pure parable nor pure alle- 
gory, but a mixture of the two. And the two figures often 
lie side by side and the one insensibly glides into the other. 
We may find a parallel to this in the Eden Story. It is 
not altogether allegory, for Adam and Eve are not personi- 
fications, but a man and a woman of flesh and blood and 
of like passions with ourselves. Nor is it altogether par- 
able, for talking serpents, and magical trees, and fiery, 
whirling swords do not belong to real life. But it is an 



8 Introduction" 

admixture of parable and allegory. So of the Idylls. 
While in the main parabolic, it is often clearly allegorical. 
The coming of Arthur is allegorical of the origin of the 
soul. Tennyson has said so himself. Gareth and Lynette 
begins as parable, but ends with a beautiful allegory of 
Life and Death. The Holy Grail, without losing its para- 
bolic character, is at the same time allegorical; for the 
Siege Perilous, in which who sat should lose himself, and 
the visions of Percivale, and the experience of Lancelot in 
the enchanted castle, and the Grail with its quest and its 
wondrous visions, and the passing of Galahad into the 
spiritual city ; — all this is not real but symbolical, not par- 
able but allegory. And the poem closes with an allegory 
of the passing of the soul into the heavenly world. But 
whether parable or allegory, the ethical and spiritual pur- 
pose of the poet is evident, and great lessons shine forth 
in every idyll. In the dedication to Queen Victoria, Ten- 
nyson declares his purpose. To her he says: 

"Accept this old imperfect tale, 
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul, 
Ideal manhood closed in real man." 

By Sense he means sensuality, carnality, what St. Paul 
calls the carnal mind, or the minding of the flesh. By 
Soul he means the spiritual nature, the moral instincts, 
the conscience, all of that higher nature of man which 
links him to God and lifts him upwards, the ideal man 
which is shut up in the animal man. Between these two 
natures, or two parts of human nature, there is a constant 
conflict. As St. Paul declares, "The flesh lusteth against 
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are 
contrary one to the other." Tennyson's purpose in this 
poem is to shadow, or represent parabolically and allegor- 



Introduction 9 

ically, this warfare between the Sense and the Soul, be- 
tween the carnal nature and the spiritual nature, between 
animalism and spiritualism, between sin and holiness. 
How well he has done this I have undertaken to show in 
the chapters that follow. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE COMING OF ARTHUR; THE SOUL'S ORIGIN, 

AND ITS WARFARE, WEAPONS, 

AND ALLY. 

Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky! 
A young man will be wiser by and by; 
An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 

Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea! 
And truth is this to me, and that to thee; 
And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 

Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows! 
Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows? 
From the great deep to the great deep he goes. 

Whence came King Arthur? Whose son is he? Is he 
the son of Uther, or of Gorlois, or of Anton, or of some one 
else? Or is he of supernatural origin? The question is 
raised and various answers given. When King Leodogran 
asked Bedivere about it, he answered, 

" Sir, there be many rumors on this head ; 
For there be those who hate him in their hearts, 
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet, 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man ; 
And there be those who deem him more than man, 
And dream he dropt from heaven. " 

[177-182. 
10 



The Coming of Arthur 11 

When the same king asked the question of Bellicent, sup- 
posed sister of Arthur, she related a wondrous tale, which 
had been told her by the old magician Bleys as he was 
dying. Bleys and his pupil in magic, Merlin, were with 
King Uther in his last hours, and heard him moaning and 
wailing for an heir to take the crown and hold the realm 
together. And on the night he died, the two magicians 
went out into the night air, and walked down to the sea- 
shore. And there, coming over the sea, they beheld a 
ship, like unto a winged dragon, and bright with shining 
figures on the deck, but disappearing as soon as seen. And 
as they stood by the shore, a great wave came towards them, 
full of the voices of the deep, 

And all the wave was in a flame, 
And down the wave, and in the flame was borne 
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet, 
Who stooped and caught the babe, and cried, "The King! 
Here is an heir for Uther!" And the fringe 
Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, 
Lashed at the wizard as he spake the word, 
And all at once all 'round him rose in fire, 
So that the child and he were clothed in fire. 

[381-389. 
"And this same child," said the old magician, "is he who 
reigns." But when Bellicent asked Merlin of all this, he 
only laughed and answered in a riddle, 

"Rain, sun, and rain ! and the free blossom blows. 
Sun, rain, and sun ! and where is he who knows ? 
From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 

[138-140. 

And there the poet leaves the question of the origin of 



13 The Coming of Arthur 

Arthur, leaves it wrapped in mystery, but with a supernat- 
ural halo about it. 

Now, what spiritual idea does the poet shadow forth in 
this problem? What but the question of the origin of the 
soul? Whence comes the soul of man?, Some say it is 
base-born, that it is of brutal origin, that the soul as well 
as the body has sprung from the womb of animalism. 
Some say it is of noble but merely human origin, that the 
soul is generated like the body and along with the body, 
and hence has its origin in human parentage, and is of the 
earth earthy. But the seers tell us that it has a super- 
natural origin, that it comes from above, that not earth but 
heaven is its source, that 

"The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar. 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

Not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come, 

From God who is our home." 

Is not this what Tennyson means when he makes Merlin, 
the wise man, to say of Arthur, " From the ,great deep to 
the great deep he goes ?" He came from over the sea, and 
back over the sea he shall go. From the ocean of eternity 
he came, and to the ocean of eternity he shall return. So 
the soul of man comes forth in some mysterious way from 
a mysterious eternity, and by and by returns to eternity 
again, "from the great deep to the great deep." 

King Arthur looked upon Guinevere, the daughter of 
King Leodogran, and loved her, and asked her hand in 
marxiage. She was the old king's only child, and very 
dear to him, and he had all the pride of royalty, and could 
not give his daughter in wedlock save to one of royal birth 
and one who was king indeed. And Leodogran in heart 



The Coming of Arthur 13 

debated the matter, and inquired of his chief counselor, 
"Knowest thou aught of Arthur's birth?" But the wise 
man could tell him naught. Then he called the ambassa- 
dors from Arthur's court, and inquired of them, "Hold ye 
this Arthur for King Uther's son?" And they told him 
all they knew, asserting their belief that Arthur was born 
a king. But still Leodogran 

Debated with himself 
If Arthur were the child of shamef ulness, 
Or born the son of Gorlois after death, 
Or Uther's son and born before his time, 
Or whether there were truth in anything 
Said by these three. 

[237-242. 

Then when Queen Bellicent came and told him what she 
knew of Arthur, and the magician's story of his supernat- 
ural origin, and the supernatural marvels at his corona- 
tion, Leodogran, half convinced, still hesitated, and 

Musing, "Shall I answer yea or nay?" 
Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept. 

[425-6. 

And as he slept he dreamed, and in his vision, "the King 
stood out in heaven crowned," and when he awoke Leodo- 
gran accepted the vision as a heaven-sent credential of 
Arthur's royalt}', and sent the ambassadors 

Back to the court of Arthur answering Yea. 

[445. 

His doubts were vanished, and he gave to Arthur his con- 
fidence and his child. 

Herein is pictured the soul in conflict with doubt. As 



14 The Coming of Akthtjb 

Leodogran was beset with, doubts concerning the royal birth 
and kingly character of Arthur, so the souls of men are 
beset with doubts concerning the Divine origin and Divine 
character of Jesus and His religion. And as Leodogran 
could not yield his treasure and bestow his confidence on 
Arthur till these doubts were solved, so men do not give 
their hearts and their loyalty to Jesus till doubt gives way 
to faith. And as the old king needed not only to be con- 
vinced by reason, but must have reason confirmed by a 
heavenly vision, so the solvent of men's doubts is not reason 
alone but the spiritual vision of the truth. We may think 
the argument sufficient, but it is only when we see "the 
King stand out in heaven, crowned," that our souls answer, 
"Yea," and we yield Him our heart's eternal fealty. 
Herein, too, we may learn how doubt must be conquered. 
Leodogran conquered his doubts, not by hiding and smoth- 
ering them, but by propounding them and facing them and 
seeking for the truth. And thus alone can we conquer the 
doubts that beset us; we must not try to dodge them, but 
fairly and squarely face them, and seek for their true solu- 
tion. - We must do as did another of whom Tennyson 
sings: 

He fought his doubts and gathered strength; 

He would not make his judgment blind, 

He faced the spectres of the mind 
And laid them ; thus he came at length 
To find a stronger faith his own. 

[In Memoriam, Canto 96. 

The sword with which King Arthur fought his battles 
was called Excalibur. A wonderful weapon was this — 
wonderful in its appearance, and irresistible in the hands 
of Arthur. It was set 



The Coming of Arthur 15 

With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, 
Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright 
That men are blinded by it. 

[298-300. 
All the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth work 
Of subtlest jewelry. 

[Passing of Arthur, 224-226. 

This mystic brand was not of human workmanship, but was 
of supernatural origin. It was given to the King by the 
Lady of the Lake. He saw one day a hand, uplifting the 
sword, rise up from the bosom of the lake, and he rowed 
across and took it. And when Arthur's days on earth were 
drawing to a close, at his command Bedivere threw the 
sword into the lake, and the same mystic hand rose up to 
receive it. It was a gift from the Lady of the Lake, and 
to her hand it was returned. A sword with such an origin, 
and of such a character, is certainly meant by the poet to 
have an allegorical significance. What, then, does it sym- 
bolize? One of two things, either the weapon of spiritual 
warfare, or the temporal power of Christianity. It might 
fittingly represent that weapon which St. Paul recommends 
to the Christian in the ^"xth of Ephesians, "the sword of 
the Spirit, which is the word of God," and which is else- 
where described as "sharper than any two-edged sword, 
and piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and 
spirit, of both joints and marrow." The Sword of the 
(Spirit, like Excalibur, is set with many a precious jewel, 
and from their facets flash a heavenly light, and its blade 
is so bright that it blinds and bewilders its enemies. It, 
too, is of supernatural origin, being the gift of that fair 
queen, Eeligion. It is the one great weapon which Re- 
ligion has given to us, with which Soul wars against Sense, 



16 The Coming of Arthur 

and with which we are to fight the battles of our Lord. 
Our Captain Himself used this weapon when, in the wilder- 
ness, He was attacked by the Black Knight, Temptation, 
and with this naming brand He put the enemy to flight. 
With this weapon the soldiers of the Cross went forth and 
conquered the Roman Empire. With this same brand we 
too, are commissioned to go and conquer all nations and 
bring them into subjection to our King. And with this 
we may conquer the enemies within, and bring every pas- 
sion, and every purpose, and every thought into captivity 
to Christ. Such a glorious, resplendent, all-conquering 
weapon of spiritual warfare might well be symbolized by 
Excalibur, the beautiful, the magnificent, the irresistible, 
the mysterious sword given to Arthur by the mystic Lady 
of the Lake. 

And yet it is not clear that this was the thought in the 
mind of the poet. The inscription on Excalibur is hardly 
reconcilable with this interpretation: 

On one side 
Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 
"Take me !" but turn the blade and ye shall see, 
And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
"Cast me away !" 

[300-304. 

Now the Sword of the Spirit is not something to be taken 
and by and by cast away. If Excalibur symbolized the 
Word of God the poet would hardly have represented 
Arthur as compelling Bedivere to cast it into the lake. So 
it seems more probable that this mystic brand signifies 
another kind of weapon, entrusted to the Church for a 
/ time, but by and by, having served its purpose, to be laid 

aside, that is/ the temporal or secular power of Christianity./ 
There have been times when such a power was needful, 



The Coming of Aethur 17 

seemingly essential to the very life of Christianity, times 
when the Church must either arise and smite its enemies, 
or be destroyed by them. Take for instance the time 
when the Saracens, followers of Mahomet, subduing all 
before them, putting to the sword all who did not accept 
their religion, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, and threat- 
ened to bring all Europe under the banner of the Crescent 
and the dominion of Islam; — what would have been the 
fate of Europe, what would have been the fate of the Chris- 
tian Church, had they not been met and crushed by Charles 
Martel, wielding the weapon of military power ? Humanly 
speaking at least, the world owes Christianity to the Excali- 
bur of Charles Martel. So there have been times many 
when the weapon of carnal warfare was the weapon with 
which the Kingdom of Heaven has had to fight its battles. 
But on the other side of Excalibur was 

Written in the speech ye speak yourselves, 
"Cast me away." 

This weapon was only for the exigencies of a season, a 
new order should arise when such a weapon would be no 
longer necessary, and then it" must be cast away. That 
time has come; the Church no longer needs to fight for 
existence against heathen hordes; it has become a world- 
conqueror, its permanency and power is assured. Hence- 
forth its work is to be accomplished "not by might, nor by 
power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." 

The Lady of the Lake is another allegorical feature of 
the poem. She does not appear as a real person in the 
story, a woman of flesh and blood like Bellicent or Guin- 
evere. She is a personification of Eeligion, the ally of the 
Soul. It was she who gave to Arthur the mystic sword. 
She was present to sanction his coronation, attended by 
three fairs queens — Faith, Hope, and Love. She was 



18 The Coming of Arthur 

"clothed in white samite," emblem of purity. The "mist 
of incense curled about her" signifies the worship ever asso- 
ciated with religion. "Her face well-nigh hidden in the 
minster gloom" symbolizes its background and atmosphere 
of mystery. Her dwelling 

Down in a deep — calm, whatsoe'er the storms 
May shake the world, 

[291-2. 

is the same great deep from which Arthur came and to 
which he was to go, the depths of eternity. In the second 
Idyll, Tennyson carries out this allegory further. He de- 
scribes the Lady of the Lake sculptured on the gate of 
Camelot : 

And there was no gate like it under heaven. 
For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined 
And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, 
The Lady of the Lake stood; all her dress 
Wept from her sides as water flowing away; 
But like the cross her great and goodly arms 
Stretched under all the cornice and upheld. 
And drops of water fell from either hand ; 
And down from one a sword was hung, from one 
A censer, either worn with wind and storm; 
And on her breast floated the sacred fish. 

[Gareth and Lynette, 209-219. 

What a beautiful picture of religion is this ! Her dress — 
her outward form — mobile, mutable, constantly changing, 
flowing like water; her arms — her moral and spiritual 
power — immovable and eternal, upholding the fabric of 
the world ; the water dropping from her hands — the waters 
of baptism — symbolizing the cleansing power of religion; 
the sword — symbol of justice, and the censer — symbol of 



The Coming of Arthur 19 

worship, both marked by the storms and strifes of cen- 
turies; on her breast the sacred fish — in the early days of 
persecution the secret symbol of Christ (the initials of the 
Greek word standing for "Jesus Christ, God's Son, 
Saviour") — signifying that at the very heart of religion 
stands Jesus, the Divine Son, the Saviour of the world. 



CHAPTER III. 

GARETH AND LYNETTE; THE SOUL VERSUS 

DOUBT, PRIDE, SIN AND DEATH. 

i 

"Sir Knave, my knight, a hermit once was here, 
Whose holy hand hath fashioned on the rock 
The war of Time against the soul of man. 
And you four fools have sucked their allegory 
From these damp walls., and taken but the form. 
Know ye not these?" and Gareth looked and read, 
"Phosphorus," then "Meridies" — "Hesperus" — 
"Nox" — "Mors," beneath five figures, armed men, 
Slab after slab, their faces forward all, 
And running down the Soul, a shape that fled 
With broken wings, torn raiment, and loose hair, 
For help and shelter to the hermit's cave. 

Gareth, youngest son of Queen Bellicent, was ambitious 
to be a knight and join King Arthur's Table Round. But 
his mother fain would have dissuaded him and kept him 
with herself. Day by day he pled to go and she to detain 
him. At last she consented on a condition which she 
thought he would not meet, viz., that he go to Arthur's 
hall disguised as a servant and serve as a kitchen-knave 
twelve months and a day. He accepts the condition, and 
sets forth with two faithful servants. Faithfully he serves 
for a month, when his mother repents, and sends him arms, 
and releases him from the vow. Then is he knighted in 
secret, and only Arthur and Lancelot know him knight and 
prince. That same day, as he stands in the hall among 

20 



Gaketh and Lynette 21 

the knights, his bright armor concealed by the servant's 
cloak, a fair damsel named Lynette comes to the king for 
help. Her sister Lyonors is shut up in her castle, beset by 
four outlaw knights who guard the passes. To Gareth the 
king gives the commission to redress this wrong and de- 
liver the lady. The adventures of the young knight on 
this quest will be noticed later. It is my purpose to point 
out how this story sets forth "Sense at war with Soul," or 
the spiritual conflicts of man. 

Here again we meet the conflict with doubt, but doubt 
under a new form. It is not the doubt of Leodogran. 
He doubted whether Arthur be of royal birth, and whether 
he be rightful king. But such questions troubled Gareth 
not at all. His mother, seeking to detain him, said, 

" Sweet son, for there be many who deem him not, 
Or will not deem him, wholly proven king — 
. . . wilt thou leave 
Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all, 
Life, limbs, for one that is not proven king ? 
Stay, till the cloud that settles 'round his birth 
Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son." 

[119-130. 

But Gareth answered, 

"Not proven, who swept the dust of ruined Eome 
From off the threshold of the realm, and crushed 
The idolaters, and made the people free? 
Who should be king save him who makes us free ?" 

[131-134. 

Noble answer that, and fit answer to those who would trou- 
ble us with doubts about the kingship of our King, about 
the manner of His birth, about His Divine nature and au- 
thority. "Stay," they say, "withhold your allegiance and 



2% Gaeeth and Lynette 

your service till these questions be settled and he is proven 
king." To such let us answer, "His character is His kingly 
credential, His deeds proclaim Him King, He has con- 
quered Rome and crushed idolatry, He has given us spirit- 
ual freedom, and 'Who should be King save Him who 
makes us free V " 

The conflict herein figured is with doubt more subtle and 
far-reaching, involving a question of philosophy. As 
Gareth and his servants approached Camelot, the royal city, 
the two servants besought him to turn back, 

One crying, "Let us go no further, lord; 
Here is a city of enchanters, built 
By fairy kings." The second echoed him, 
"Lord, we have heard from our wise man at home 
To northward, that this king is not the King, 
But only changeling out of Fairyland, 
Who drave the heathen hence by sorcery 
And Merlin's glamour." 

[195-202. 

These doubts disturb not Gareth till they reach the City's 
gate, but the weirdness of its carvings, whereon the figures 
seemed to move as if alive, shook even his brave heart. 
And when Merlin came out from the city, Gareth said to 
him, 

"These my men 
Doubt if the King be king at all, or come 
From Fairyland; and whether this be built 
By magic, and by fairy kings and queens ; 
Or whether there be any city at all, 
Or all a vision." 

[240-246. 



Gareth and Lynette 23 

To which Merlin answered, mocking him, 

"It is enchanted, son, 
For there is nothing in it as it seems 
Saving the King ; though some there be that hold 
The King a shadow, and the city real." 

[259-262. 

But Gareth "with all good cheer," entered through the 
gate, and found a real city of wood and stone, and a real 
King of flesh and blood, and real knights in armor clad, 
and real wrongs to be redressed. His doubts about the 
reality of things were conquered, and to him life became 
real, life became earnest. 

This mental experience of Gareth is a parable of the 
doubt which has often perplexed the minds of men concern- 
ing the reality of things. What is real? Is this visible, ^y 
tangible universe real, or only imaginary, subjective, vision 
of the mind? Is man himself real, or only a "vision to 
himself"? Is it true that 

"Life is but an empty dream, 
And the soul is dead that slumbers, 
And things are not what they seem"? 

Is it true of the universe, 

There is nothing in it as it seems 
Saving the King? 

Or is it true, as some hold, that "The King is a shadow," 
that God is a myth, and this material world the only real- 
ity ? Or is there nothing real ? Is existence only a dream. 
a nightmare, a vision? These are the questions pro- 
pounded, these are doubts portrayed in the parable of 
Gareth and Lynette. And the answer wrought out is clear 
and reassuring; God is real, the world is real, men and 



*s 



24 Gareth and Lynette 

women are real, sin and wrong is real, duty and right is 
real, life is real, and love is life's crowning reality. 

Yet more clearly this parable portrays the conflict be- 
tween a noble ambition and a false pride, Gareth embody- 
ing the one and Lynette the other. The youth in the seclu- 
sion of his castle home felt within him the stirrings of 
ambition, the longing to do something that would be noble 
and would give him an honorable name. One day he told 
his mother of a prince who desired a bride, and his father 

" Set two before him. One was fair, strong, armed — 
But to be won by force — and many men 
Desired her; one, good lack, no man desired. 
And these were the conditions of the king; 
That save he won the first by force, he needs 
Must wed the other, whom no man desired." 

[103-108. 

The one they called Fame, the other Shame. He saw 
before him fame or shame. His ambition was for fame, 
not for a shallow, worldly fame; nor for mere notoriety; 
but for that Good Name which the Wise Man says "is 
better than silver and gold," and which taken from us 
"leaves us poor indeed"; that Spotless Reputation which 
Shakespeare says "is the purest treasure mortal times 
afford" ; that Fame which Milton calls 

"The spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
To Scorn delights and live laborious days ; 
Which is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
Nor in the glistening foil 
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, 
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
And perfect witness of all- judging Jove." 



GrARETH AND LYNETTE 25 

This was the fame for which Gareth longed. His ambition 
was to 

"Follow the Christ, the King, 
Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King." 

[116-117. 

If he thought to do these things for the sake of worldly 
applause the King gently rebukes him, saying, 

"Wherefore would ye men should wonder at you? 
Nay, rather for the sake of me, their King, 
And for the deed's sake my knighthood do the deed, 
Than to be noised of." 

[557-560. 

And Gareth learns the lesson, for when thanked and 
offered reward for his first knightly deed, he replies, 

"For the deed's sake have I done the deed, 
In uttermost obedience to the King." 

[811-812. 

Over against this worthy ambition stands false pride in the 
person of Lynette. To quote from Dr. VanDyke, "Lynette 
is a society girl, a worshiper of rank and station; brave ; 
high-spirited, lovable, but narrow-minded, and scornful of 
every one who lacks the visible marks of distinction." In 
the war of Sense against the Soul she is on the side of 
Sense, she judges by the senses, not by the spirit. She 
judges Gareth by his station and occupation. Because he 
is a kitchen servant and toils among the pots, she thinks 
him mean and craven, despises him and scorns his serv- 
ices. Then comes the battle between this noble ambition 
and this false pride. In anger she mounts her horse and 
gallops away; he mounts and follows. When he overtakes 
her, she showers abuse upon him, but he answers only. 
"Lead and I follow." Again she flies from him, and when 



26 Gareth and Lynette 

overtaken, calls him all mean names in her vocabulary, to 

which he answers, 

"Damsel, say 
Whate'er ye will, but whatsoe'er ye say, 
I leave not till I finish this fair quest, 
Or die therefore." [753-756. 

When she loses her way, and they are compelled to spend 
the night with a baron whose life Gareth has saved, and 
the baron seats them at the same table, Lynette rises in 
anger and upbraids the host for setting this knave beside 
a noble gentlewoman ! Still not rebuffed even by this in- 
sult, on the morn he says, "Lead, and I follow." Haugh- 
tily she replies, 

"I fly no more; I allow thee for an hour. 
Lion and stoat have isled together, knave, 
In time of flood." [870-2. 

And he replies gently, 

"Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed." 

[879. 

On they go; he meets the robber knights that guard the 
passes, and overthrows them. And as the third one goes 
down, pride is overthrown, the pride that ruled in Lyn- 
ette's heart, and she says to the brave knight, 

"I lead no longer; ride thou at my side; 

Thou are the kingliest of all kitchen knaves. 

Shamed am I that I so rebuked, reviled, 

Missaid thee. . . . And now thy pardon, friend. 

For thou hast ever answered courteously, 

And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal 

As any of Arthur's best." [1128-1140. 

The ambitious youth, inspired by a lofty purpose, con- 
quered not only the robber knights, but the false pride that 



Gareth and Lynette 27 

ruled in the heart of Lynette and struggled for mastery 
in his own. He showed that true knighthood and true 
nobility consist not in name and station, but in gentleness 
and meekness and courage and self-control, — in character 
and in deed. He proved that 

"The thrall in person may be free in soul." 

[162. 
He exemplified true knighthood when he 

Wrought 
All kind of service with a noble ease 
That graced the lowliest act in doing it. 

[478-480. 

The parable is but another picture of Sense at war with 
Soul, and Soul is again crowned victor. 

Those knights against whom Gareth fought had strange 
names and strange armor. The first was called Morning- 
Star. He dwelt in a silk pavilion, gorgeously colored with 
hues of gold and daffodil and purple and crimson. He was 
attended by three fair maidens in gilt and rosy raiment; 
their feet glistening in dewy grasses, their hair sparkling 
with dewdrops. He was clad in blue armor, and carried 
a blue shield on which glittered the morning star. Sir 
Gareth and Sir Morning- Star met in combat on the bridge 
which spanned the stream, and in the shock both were 
unhorsed. Then they drew sword, but Gareth struck sc 
fiercely that he drove his enemy back, and finally felled 
him. The second knight was named the Noonday- Sun. 
His face was red, he rode a red horse, his armor was glit- 
tering bright to blinding, his shield flashed in the sunlight 
till 

Gareth' s eyes had flying blots 
Before them when he turned from watching him. 

[1005-6. 



28 s Gareth and Lynette 

In midstream they met, and fiercely they fought, not with 
lance but sword, face to face and hand to hand. And 
Gareth feared he might be shamed, for this knight was 
stronger than the first. But the elements helped the youth, 
and Sir Sun was swept down by the raging stream. The 
third knight called himself Star of Evening. He was 
wrapped in hardened skins, so tough no sword could cleave 
them. He tented in "an old storm-beaten, russet, many 
stained pavilion." From the tent came forth a gray- 
haired spinster, 

And armed him in old arms, and brought a helm 
With but a drying evergreen for crest, 
And gave a shield whereon the star of even 
Half-tarnished, half-bright, his emblem, shone. 

[1087-1090. 

The bridge became their battle-ground. At first they met 
with horse and lance, and Gareth overthrew his foe. But 
up he sprang, and Gareth, lighting, attacked him with 
sword, 

And overthrew him again 
But up like fire he started; and as oft 
As Gareth brought him groveling on his knees, 
So many a time he vaulted up again. 

[1094-1097. 

Gareth hewed his armor off, but lashed in vain against the 
hardened skin, and could not beat him down. At length 
Gareth's sword clashed that of his foe, and shattered it* 
But when he thought the victory won, the treacherous 
knight sprang upon him, and had well-nigh strangled him. 
But Gareth put forth his uttermost strength, and hurled 
him headlong over the bridge. 

What is the meaning of all this ? What would the poet 



Gareth and Lynette 29 

have us understand by these knights and these conflicts? 
He has not left us in doubt, but has woven the interpreta- 
tion into the story. Near by the scene of this last conflict 
stood slabs of rock with figures sculptured thereon, knights 
on horseback, and underneath the knights the names Phos- 
phorus, Meridies, Hesperus, Nox, Mors (Morning-Star. 
Noon-Day, Evening-Star, Night, Death). The knights are 

Eunning down the Soul, a shape that fled 
With broken wings, torn raiment, and loose hair 
For help and shelter to the hermit's cave. 

[1177-1179. 

Lynette informs Gareth that once a hermit lived here 

"Whose holy hand hath fashioned on the rock 
The war of Time against the soul of man." 

[1167-8. 

This, then, is the meaning of the knights fighting against 
Gareth; the allegory of the hermit is the allegory of the «/ 
poet; it is "the war of Time against the soul of man." In 
the hermit's allegory the soul is defeated and is flying foi 
refuge to the hermit's cave, but in the poet's allegory the 
soul is victor. 'It represents the soul's struggles with the 
temptations of youth and of manhood and of old age^- The 
knight of the Morning-Star stands for the temptation 
which meets the soul in the bright morning of youth, and 
which may without great difficulty be conquered. The 
knight named Noonday-Sun images the temptation which 
confronts us at the midday of life, which is stronger and 
more difficult of conquest. And the knight called Eve- 
ning-Star figures the temptation with which man must 
war in life's evening, a foe, wary, wiry, and persistent, one 



30 GrARETH AND LyNETTE 

that must be conquered not once but many times. In bat- 
tling with this last Gareth 

Seemed as one 
That all in later, sadder age begins 
To war against ill uses of a life, 
But these from all his life arise, and cry, 
"Thou hast made us lords, and canst not put us down." 

[1100-1104. 

But as Gareth conquered all, so may the soul win the vic- 
tory over all the temptations of life. 

But there was yet another struggle for our hero ere his 
quest was accomplished. There was a fourth knight, call- 
ing himself Sir Death, whose black pavilion with its black 
banner stood at the end of the journey and guarded the 
entrance to the castle of Lady Lyonors. He was reputed 
to be a monster of great might, pitiless, ferocious, "mas- 
sacring man, woman, lad, and girl — yea, the soft babe." 
When Gareth blew the horn, the black curtains of the black 
tent opened, and Sir Death came forth, mounted on a night- 
black horse, clad in night-black armor with white breast- 
bone and ribs painted thereon, and crowned with a hideous 
grinning skull. His appearance struck terror to the hearts 
of the beholders. Lynette fainted; Lady Lyonors wrung 
her hands and wept ; Sir Lancelot felt his blood chill ; and 
Sir Gareth's hair stood up. But the horses rushed for- 
ward to the fray, and in the tilt 

Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose. 
But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull. 
Half fell to right and half to left and lay. 
Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm 



Gareth and Lykette 31 

As thoroughly as the skull ; and out from this 
Issued the bright face of a blooming boy 
Fresh as a flower new-born. 

[1360-1366. 

And then the new day dawned, and Gareth and his friends 

Made merry over Death, 
As being after all their foolish fears 
And horrors only proven a blooming boy. 
So large mirth lived, and Gareth won the quest. 

[1388-1391. 

The meaning of this is obvious. Death is not the formid- 
able foe men think him to be, not the terrible monster he 
seems to be. He is the last enemy the soul must meet in 
its quest, and yet if bravely met no real enemy at all, an 
enemy only in semblance. And he who conquers Death 
wins an immortal youth. 



CHAPTER IV. 

GERAIXT AXD ENID; THE SOUL VERSUS 
ARROGAXCE AXD JEALOUSY. 

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, aDd lower the proud; 
Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm and cloud; 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; 
With that wild wheel we go nor up nor down; 
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. 

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; 
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands; 
For man is man and master of his fate. 

Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd; 
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud; 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 

Under this title we shall study two of the Idylls, the 
Marriage of Geraint and Geraint and Enid. In the older 
editions of Tennyson's poems the story constituted one 
poem, but in later editions it has been divided into two. 
It is really one poem, and should never have been cut in 
twain. The Marriage of Geraint is just as much the mar- 
riage of Enid, and the story of the two, begun in the first, 
is continued in the second. The original title of the poem 
was Enid, and this is the better name for it, for Enid is 
the heroine of the story, but Geraint can hardly be called 
the hero. Edyrn might well dispute that honor with him, 
with the odds in favor of Edyrn, and supported by the 
judgment of King Arthur. But Enid is a true heroine, 
and deserves to be honored by giving the poem her name. 

32 



GrERAISTT AND ENID 33 

This poem sets forth two aspects of the conflict of Soul 
against Sense. The first we shall consider is the conflict 
of the Soul with Arrogant Pride. This is pictured in the y 
fall and regeneration of Edyrn. It is incidental and sec- 
ondary to the main thread of the story and the prime pur- 
pose of the poem, but its lesson is equally important. 
Edyrn, when first we meet him, is an incarnation of arro- 
gant pride. This was his weakness, this was his besetting 
sin, this was the one great vice which ruled in his heart 
and surrounded itself with kindred vices, as an evil king 
attracts to himself evil courtiers. Edyrn wooed his cousin 
Enid, but was rejected because unworthy and unlovable. 
Then his pride transformed his passion to spite, and he 
vented his spleen on Enid and her parents. By fraud anci 
villainy he drove the old earl from his castle, deprived him 
of his earldom, seized his property and usurped his place. 
Thinking to humiliate Enid still further, he gave an an- 
nual tournament in which was offered a golden sparrow- 
hawk to him who overcame. This he himself always won 
and gave it to his paramour. And he hoped that some 
day Enid's lover would come to contend for the prize, and 
he would overcome him and trample on him and kill him 
in spite of her prayers and tears. For he so waxed in pride 
that he believed himself unconquerable. By and by the 
man he looked for came, Enid's lover, Geraint. But Ge- 
raint overthrew him, and set foot on his breast, and made 
him promise to redress the wrong he had done the old earl, 
and to ride to Arthur's court and crave pardon of the 
Queen. But Edyrn's undoing was his remaking. His de- 
feat was the breaking of his pride, the conquest of his arro- 
gance. His overthrow was his upthrow, his downfall was 
his uprising, his ruin was his regeneration. When a year 
later he met Geraint he said to him, 



34 Geraint and Enid 

"I love you, prince, with something of the love 
Wherewith we love the Heaven that chastens us. 
For once, when I was up so high in pride 
That I was half-way down the slope to hell, 
By overthrowing me you threw me higher." 

[Geraint and Enid, 787-791. 

And to Enid he says, 

"Once you came, and with your own true eyes 
Beheld the man you loved (I speak as one 
Speaks of a service done him) overthrow 
My proud self, and my purpose three } r ears old, 
And set his foot upon me, and give me life. 
There was I broken down, there was I saved." 

, [Geraint and Enid, 845-850. 

This, however, was only the beginning of his reformation. 
He went to Arthur's hall hating his life, and contemplat- 
ing self-destruction. He went sullen and defiant, expect- 
ing to be treated as a wolf, but he tells Enid he found 

"Instead of scornful pity or pure scorn, 
Such fine reserve and noble reticence, 
Manners so kind, yet stately, such a grace 
Of tenderest courtesy, that I began 
To glance behind me at my former life, 
And find it had been the wolf's indeed." 

[Geraint and Enid, 858-863. 

The kindliness, the gentleness, the tender courtesy and 
courtliness, the knightliness of noble knights, and the king- 
liness of the King, — this was the bright background which 
showed by contrast the blackness of his past life. And the 
power of associations and companionships helped forward 



Gebaint and Enid 35 

his reformation. Nor was this sufficient; there was a part 
for the Church and religion to do ; 

"Oft I talked with Dubric, the high saint, 
Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 
Subdued me somewhat to the gentleness 
Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man." 

[Geraint and Enid, 864-867. 

Thus did Edyrn "slowly draw himself bright from his old 
dark life." He used 

Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch 
Of blood and custom wholly out of him, 
And make all clean, and plant himself afresh. 

[Geraint and Enid, 902-904. 

And Arthur made him a Knight of the Table Round, hav- 
ing proved him one of the "noblest, most valorous, sanest 
and most obedient." Edyrn proved himself a real hero. 
What he did in changing his heart, in reforming his man- 
ner of life, in regenerating his character, required courage 
of the highest kind, and showed genuine heroism. This 
This fact Tennyson recognizes and brings out with empha- 
sis. Arthur puts the achievement of Edyrn far above the 
deeds of Geraint fresh from his conquest of the robbers, say- 
ing, 

"This work of Edyrn, wrought upon himself 
After a life of violence, seems to me 
A thousand-fold more great and wonderful, 
Than if some knight of mine, risking his life, 
My subject with my subjects under him, 
Should make an onslaught single on a realm 
Of robbers, though he slew them one by one, 
And were himself nigh wounded to the death." 

[Geraint and Enid, 911-918. 



3ti Gekaint and Enid 

The main thread of our story, however, is a parable of 
love and jealousy. It tells the story of Geraint and Enid 
in their relation to each other. Enid is the embodiment 
of loyal love. She loves truly and deeply, so thoroughly 
that there is no room in her heart for even the shadow of a 
suspicion. Her love is spiritual and unselfish. Geraint is 
the embodiment of suspicion and jealousy. He, too, loves, 
but his love is more sensual and selfish. He loves Enid 
more for her fair face and sweet voice than for her inner 
soul. And so his love, being not so deeply rooted in his 
soul, leaves room for suspicion, and suspicion creates jeal- 
ousy. His love is not grounded in perfect faith nor does 
it beget perfect faith. And love without faith is hardly 
love at all. As Vivien sang,, 

"In love, if love be love, if love be ours, 
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers : 
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all." 

[Merlin and Vivien, 385-387. 

This was the fatal flaw in Geraint's love, this was the little 
rift within the lute that in a twelvemonth made the music 
mute. The folly and misery of such unfaith the poet ex- 
presses in the prelude to the second part: 

purblind race of miserable men, 
How many among us at this very hour 
Do forge a lifelong trouble for ourselves, 
By taking true for false, or false for true ; 
Here, through the feeble twilight of this world 
Groping, how many, until we pass and reach 
That other where we see as we are seen. 

[Geraint and Enid, 1-7. 



Geraint and Enid 37 

To paint the foolishness of such folly, the misery of such 
blindness, the cruelty of suspicion, and the madness of 
jealousy, this is the poet's purpose. The parable sets forth 
the conflict between loyal love in the person of Enid and 
jealous suspicion in the person of Geraint. 

Even before they are wed, Geraintrs suspicious nature 
crops out. After Enid has given her promise, he doubtr 
whether her love be genuine, fearing lest she has been 
unduly influenced by her parents, or lest perchance his 
station and the glitter of the court have been the primal 
factors in her choice. So to test her love he asks that she 
lay aside the lovely gown, the gift of her mother, and 
wear to court the old and faded dress she wore when first 
they met. And Enid, being loyal and meek, does as she 
is bidden. They go to Arthur's court, and there are wed, 
and Enid becomes close friend to the Queen. For a while 
happily they live, Geraint rejoicing in the friendship of 
Enid with the Queen, till vague rumors arise about the 
purity of the Queen. He, believing these rumors, deter- 
mines to take his wife away from the danger of pollution, 
so goes to his own realm. There he conceives a suspicion 
that her nature has received a taint from contact with 
Guinevere, and suspicion begets jealousy in his heart. One 
morning she, sitting beside him while he sleeps, is medi- 
tating about her wifely duty and how she fails therein. 
Stirred by her emotion, she speaks half aloud, and this 
awakens him, and he hears her saying, "0 me, I fear I 
am no true wife." He jumps at once to the conclusion 
that this is her self-confession that she is in heart untrue 
to him, that she is pining for another. In hot anger he 
springs up, orders his charger and her palfry, and bids her 
put on her worst and meanest dress, and ride with him 
into the wilderness. Enid puts on the faded silk, and they 



38 Geraint and Enid 

go forth into the dangers of the wilderness, she at his com- 
mand riding far before. For he says to her, 

"Not at my side. I charge thee ride before, 
Ever a good way on before; and this 
I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife, 
Whatever happens, not to speak to me, 
No, not a word." 

[Geraint and Enid, 14-18. 

About the middle of the morning Enid sees three armed 
horsemen hiding behind a rock, and turns back to warn 
Geraint, preferring to face his anger and even die by his 
hand than to endanger him. Scorning her kindness, he 
attacks the bandits and overthrows them. On they go, 
till she spies in the wood three other robber knights, wait- 
ing to fall upon him. Again she stops to warn him, to 
be requited with a wrathful answer, he adding insult to in- 
jury, saying, 

"If I fall, cleave to the better man." 

[Geraint and Enid, 152. 

He slays the robbers. Then on again till they come to a 
town, where they hire a lodging for the night. Then 
comes to visit them Earl Limours, an old lover of hers, a 
brilliant, genial, but perfidious and impure man. He talks 
himself into the confidence of Geraint, then with his leave 
speaks to Enid, whispering of his old love, commenting 
on the estrangement between her and her husband, endeav- 
oring to convince her that Geraint loves her no longer nor 
ever will, but declaring that his love for her is as strong 
as ever, and begging the privilege of delivering her from 
her husband and making her his wife. This subtle and 
passionate temptation, which to a soul weaker and less 
loyal would have been powerful, was to Enid only insult. 



Gekaint and Enid 39 

But fearing that what she did not grant might be taken 
by force, she answers craftily, telling him to come in the 
morning and take her from her lord as if against her will. 
Early in the morning, she awakens Geraint and tells him 
of Limours's proposal and her craft. He, still wrathful 
and jealous, calls for horses, and they depart. Limours, 
following, is killed, and his followers dispersed. But 
Geraint is wounded, and presently fainting from loss of 
blood, falls from his horse. Enid hastening back, binds 
up his wound, and tends him, till the robber earl, named 
Doorm, comes by with a band of his followers. She halts 
them and asks for help, and two of the robbers are ap- 
pointed to convey them to the castle near by. Long lies 
Geraint unconscious, and Enid sits by him, holding his 
head, rubbing his hands, and calling to him. And when 
consciousness returns he feels her tears falling on his face, 
and says in his heart, "She weeps for me," but feigns that 
he is still unconscious. 

When Earl Doorm returns laden with bounty, and they 
sit down to eat and drink, he commands Enid to eat. But 
she replies, 

"No, no, I will not eat 
Till yonder man upon the bier arise, 
And eat with me." 

[Geraint and Enid, 655-657. 

He bids her drink, but she steadfastly answers, 

"Not so, by Heaven, I will not drink 
Till my dear lord arise and bid me do it, 
And drink with me ; and if he rise no more 
I will not look at wine until I die." 

[Geraint and Enid, 663-666. 



40 Geraint and Enid 

Provoked that she will not obey him, the rude earl slaps 
her in the face. Then Geraint leaps up and seizes his 
sword and smites the ruffian's head off. His followers, 
seeing a dead man arise, and seeing their leader slain, flee 
in terror, and the two are left alone together. Then 
Geraint makes his acknowledgment, saying, 

"Enid, I have used you worse than that dead man, 
Done you more wrong; we both have undergone 
That trouble which has left me thrice your own. 
Henceforth I would rather die than doubt." 

[Geraint and Enid, 734-737. 

The long and bitter conflict is over ; suspicion and jealousy 
are overthrown, and loyalty and love have conquered. They 
mount his steed, and 

He turned his face 
And kissed her climbing, and she cast her arms 
About him, and at once they rode away. 
And never yet, since high in Paradise 
O'er the four rivers the first roses blew, 
Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind 
Than lived through her who in that perilous hour 
Put hand to hand beneath her husband's heart, 
And felt him hers again. She did not weep, 
But o'er her meek eyes came a happy mist 
Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 
Before the useful trouble of the rain. 

[Geraint and Enid, 758-769. 

Geraint's heart, a love which was deeper and purer, a love 
which was rooted in his innermost character and twined 
itself around the very soul of Enid, a love which doubted 
nevermore and questioned not at all. And their pure love 



Geraint and Enid 41 

for one another blessed and ennobled their lives. Return- 
ing to their own land, Geraint ( 

Kept the justice of the King 
So vigorously yet mildly that all hearts 
Applauded, and the spiteful whisper died. 
They called him the great prince and man of men. 
But Enid, whom her ladies loved to call 
Enid the Fair, a grateful people named 
Enid the Good. . . . Nor did he doubt her more, 
But rested in her fealty till he crowned 
A happy life with a fair death, and fell 
Against the heathen of the Northern Sea, 
In battle, fighting for the blameless King. 

[Geraint and Enid, 955-965. 



CHAPTEE V. 

BALIN AND BALAN; THE SOUL VERSUS 
TEMPER. 

"Good my brother, hear! 
Let not thy moods prevail when I am gone 
Who used to lay them! Hold them outer fiends, 
Who leap at thee to tear thee; shake them aside, 
Dreams ruling when wit sleeps! Yea, hut to dream 
That any of these would wrong thee wrongs thyself. 
Witness their flowery welcome. Bound are they 
To speak no evil. Truly, save for fears, 
My fears for thee, so rich a fellowship 
Would make me wholly blest; thou one of them, 
Be one indeed. Consider them, and all 
Their bearing in their common bond of love, 
No more of hatred than in heaven itself, 
No more of jealousy than in Paradise." 

Balin and Balan were twin brothers, and alike in 
strength, in courage, in simplicit}', and in honesty. But in 
temper they were unlike. Balin was possessed of a fiery 
temper which at times flamed up, and consumed his better 
nature, and impelled him to deeds of violence. But 
Balan was meek and gentle, holding the reins of his tem- 
per, and keeping his angry passions within proper bounds. 
"Both men," says VanDyke, "represent force; but one is 
force under dominion of soul, the other is force under the 
dominion of sense." Balin is the incarnation of violent 
passion, and the idyll tells of his struggle against this pas- 
sion. The purpose of the poem, then, is to portray the 

42 



Balin and Balan 43 

Soul's conflict with anger or violent Temper. It is pic- 
tured as a long drawn-out battle, with allies on either side, 
and with varying fortunes. 

On the side of the Soul is Brotherly Devotion in the per- 
son of Balan. He was true brother to Balin, and his 
guardian angel. Ever he watched over him and strove to 
save him from the power of his evil Temper. As David's 
harp drove the evil spirit from the heart of Saul, so the 
gentle music of Balan's voice had power to dispel the angry 
moods which came upon Balin. And when they needs 
must separate Balan fortifies his brother with words of 
encouragement, saying, 

"Let not thy moods prevail when I am gone 
Who used to lay them ! Hold them outer fiends, 
Who leap at thee to tear thee ; shake them aside, 
Dreams ruling when wit sleeps ! yea, but to dream 
That any of these would wrong thee wrongs thyself." 

[137-141. 

Another ally of the Soul in this struggle was the Gentle 
Courtesy in all the atmosphere of the court. Courtesy 
is contagious, and Balin, moving in a realm where gentle 
speech seemed vernacular, and ill-temper was never allowed 
to show itself, and knights and ladies were gentle men and 
gentle women in all their outward bearing, — Balin, breath- 
ing this atmosphere of courtesy, partook somewhat of the 
gentleness of the court, "learned the graces of the Table 
Round," and "felt his being move in music with his Order 
and the King." He saw 

" Their bearing in their common bond of love, 
No more of hatred than in heaven itself, 
No more of jealousy than in Paradise." 

[147-149. 



44 Balin" and Balan 

Believing this of the knights of the Bound Table, and be- 
ing one of them, he strove to become one in truth. Great 
indeed is the power of good associations to help us over- 
come the evil in us and to inspire us and lift us to nobler 
things. And this helped Balin not a little. 

But his greatest allies were the Ideals he saw in Lancelot 
and Guinevere. These were his beau-ideals. He deter- 
mined 

To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy, 
Manhood, and knighthood; wherefore hovered round 
Lancelot. 

[155-157. 

This knight seemed to him like a lofty mountain peak 
bathed in sunlight or "touching at night the northern star." 
And ever he longed, yet despairing, to be like Lancelot. 
And this ideal which he saw, or thought he saw, in Lancelot 
was lifting him upward, and helping him to conquer Tem- 
per. But what, he asked himself, is the secret of Lance- 
lot's greatness ? What but the friendship with Guinevere ? 

"This worship of the Queen, 
That honor, too, wherein she holds him — this, 
This was the sunshine that hath given the man 
Growth, a name that branches o'er the rest, 
And strength against all odds, and what the King 
So prizes — overprizes — gentleness. 
Her likewise would I worship as I might." 

[175-181. 

And so beside his ideal knight he placed his ideal woman, 
Guinevere, to him the personification of purity and gentle- 
ness. And he asked as a favor that he might be permitted 



Balin" and Balan* 45 

to wear her crown upon his shield. To which the King 
replied, 

"The crown is but the shadow of the King, 
And this a shadow's shadow, let him have it, 
So this will help him of his violence." 
"No shadow/' said Balin, "0 my Queen, 
But light to me ! No shadow, my King, 
But golden earnest of a gentler life !" 

[199-204. 

And the crown of the gentle Queen which he carried on 
his shield, and her image which he carried in his heart, 
gave him power over Temper. Once when he half lifted 
his arm to strike a thrall, "the memory of that cognizance 
on his shield weighted it down," and saved him from 
that violence. And once when he lifted a goblet to hurl 
it at the head of Garlon, 

Through memory of that token on the shield 
Belaxed his hold. "I will be gentle," he thought, 
"And passing gentle," caught his hand away. 

[364-366. 

And ever the crown and that for which it stood helped him 
to chain the tiger in his breast. Backed by these allies he 
fought hard with his lower self, struggling desperately with 
Temper, and seemed at length to have conquered. 

And he might have conquered had there not been allies 
fighting on the side of Temper. First of the evil allies 
came Infidelity in the person of Lancelot and the Queen. 
Just when Balin felt that he had conquered his evil pas- 
sion, one day he was sitting amid the shrubbery and flow- 
ers in the palace yard, when he witnessed a meeting between 
these two. He heard their words, and they seemed not 



46 Balin and Balan 

like the talk of queen and subject, but like the talk of 
damsel and lover. He saw the fire in Lancelot's eyes, and 
the flush on Guinevere's cheeks, and such looks as lovers 
lavish on each other. But ill he would not believe of them, 
rather would he discredit his own eyes and ears, rather 
believe himself were mad. Fleeing from the place, to him- 
self he cried, "I see not what I see, hear not what I hear." 
Nevertheless, the scene awoke the slumbering demon with- 
in, and, raging with passion, he mounted and rode away, 
overthrown by Temper allied with Infidelity. Far through 
the woodlands he rode, 

Now with slack rein and careless of himself, 

Now with dug spur and raving at himself, 

Now with drooped brow down the long glades he rode, 

. . . blind and deaf to all 

Save that chained rage which ever yelped within. 

[304-314. 

His passion somewhat cooled and subdued, at length he 
came to the court of King Pellam, where he met a second 
ally of Temper, Insolence in the person of Garlon, the 
king's son. This foul-hearted profligate, insulting his 
guest and defaming the Queen, stirred up the tiger again. 
Seeing the crown on Balin's shield, he asked, 

"Why wear ye that crown-royal?" Balin said, 

"The Queen we worship, Lancelot, I, and all, 

As fairest, best, and purest, granted me 

To bear it!" [343-346. 

Hissing, sneering, smiling in derision and scorn, Garlon 
made answer, 

"Fairest I grant her — I have seen; but best, 
Best, purest? thou from Arthur's hall, and yet 



Balik" and Balan 47 

So simple ! hast thou eyes, or if, are these 
So far besotted that they fail to see 
This fair wife-worship cloaks a secret shame? 
Truly, ye men of Arthur be but babes." 

[351-356. 

It was then that Balin would have struck him with the 
cup had not the token on his shield held back his hand. 
And he let it suffice to rebuke the defamer and to praise 
the Queen and Lancelot. But in the night the insolence 
and scorn of Garlon rankled in his memory and stung him 
in his dreams. When morning dawned, he rose to depart, 
and meeting Garlon in the courtyard, fain would have 
passed him by. But when Garlon taunted him, sneering, 
"What, wear ye still that same crown-scandalous?" Balm's 
anger overcame him, and he drew his sword and smote the 
scorner, and felled him, and smote him yet again. And 
Temper aided by Insolence won the day. 

Then Balin fled far into the forest, where he met a third 
ally of Temper, Sensualism incarnate in Vivien. He had 
hung his shield with its glittering crown upon the branch 
of a tree, determined never to wear it more, since he had 
shamed it so, and had cast himself down in utter humili- 
ation upon the ground. Vivien, coming through the wood- 
land, and seeing the crown, concluded the knight must be 
a prince from Arthur's hall. So she addressed him as 
Sir Prince, told him a false story of wrongs done to her, 
and besought his protection and guidance to Arthur's hall, 
concluding, 

"I charge thee by that crown upon thy shield, 
And by the great Queen's name, arise and hence." 

[474-5. 



48 Balin and Balan 

To which Balin answered, passionately and fiercely, 

"Thither no more ! nor prince 
Nor knight am I, but one that hath defamed 
The cognizance she gave me. Here I dwell 
Savage among the savage woods, here die — 
Die — let the wolves' black maws ensepulchre 
Their brother beast, whose anger was his lord ! 
me, that such a name as Guinevere's, 
Which our high Lancelot hath so lifted up, 
And been thereby uplifted, should through me, 
My violence and my villainy, come to shame." 

[477-486. 

This was Vivien's opportunity, and she was quick to seize 
it. This woman, herself impure, could not believe in the 
purity of man or woman. The platonic friendship which 
Lancelot and the Queen professed was to her incredible, 
only a cloak for sin, and Bairn's simple faith in it pro- 
voked from her lips a burst of laughter. She proceeded to 
disillusion him. To do so she lied, and made her youthful 
squire confirm the lies. She told of an amorous scene at 
Caerleon, which, they said, they had secretly witnessed, in 
which Lancelot and Guinevere compromised themselves. 
And Balin, though horror-stricken, remembering what he 
had witnessed at Camelot, believed the falsehood. Down 
went his two great ideals, away went the allies that had 
hitherto helped him so mightily, and up sprang his old 
enemy, Temper. 

His evil spirit upon him leaped, 
He ground his teeth together, sprang with a yell, 
Tore from the branch and cast on earth the shield, 
Drove his mailed heel athwart the royal crown, 



Balin and Balan 49 

Stamped all into defacement, hurled it from him 
Among the forest weeds, and cursed the tale, 
The told-of, and the teller. 

[529-535. 

The field is lost, and Temper has won a complete and de- 
cisive victory. Sense has triumphed over Soul. But is it 
final ? Is this the end of the warfare ? Let us see. 

Now Balan was lurking in that forest in quest of a vil- 
lain, or man, or devil, who had treacherously murdered a 
knight of Arthur's hall, and who was called "the Demon 
of the Woods/' When Balan heard the wild outcries and 
savage yells of Balin, he thought they could proceed from 
none other than this Demon of the Woods, so turned 
his horse's head in the direction whence they came. When 
he drew near, and saw Balin savagely trampling the shield 
under foot, not recognizing him, he thought, 

"Lo ! he hath slain some brother-knight, 
And tramples on the goodly shield to show 
His loathing of our Order and the Queen. 
My quest, me seems, is here. Or devil or man 
Guard thou thine head." 

And with lance in place he made for his supposed enemy. 
Balin, finding himself attacked by an unknown foe. 
snatched a shield from the squire, and vaulted on his horse 
and met his adversary. Both went down, Balan wounded 
to the death by point of lance, Balin fatally crushed by 
his horse. Vivien's squire at her command opened their 
helmets, not for pity, but for curiosity to see what manner 
of men they weTe. Leaving them for dead, the temptress 
and her slave disappeared amid the trees. By and by the 



50 Balin" and Balan 

brothers regained consciousness, and recognized each other. 
And Balin, dying, exclaimed, 

"0 brother, woe is me ! 
My madness all thy life has been thy doom, 
Thy curse, and darkened all thy day; and now 
The night has come. I scarce can see thee now. 
Good-night ! for we shall never bid again 
Good-morrow. Dark my doom was here, and dark 
It will be there. I see thee now no more. 
I would not mine again should darken thine; 
Good-night, true brother." 

[607-615. 

And Balan, dying, answered low and tenderly, 

"Good-night, true brother, here ! good-morrow, there ! 
We were born together, and we die 
Together by one doom !" and while he spoke 
Closed his death-drowsing eyes, and slept the sleep 
With Balin, either locked in either^ arm. 

[615-619. 

In the very hour of death Brotherly devotion came to the 
rescue, and put an arm of love around this defeated sol- 
dier of fortune, and drew him upward. Balan refused to 
believe that the victory of Sense was final, and that the 
defeated Soul was lost irretrievably. He held that the 
dark night of defeat would give ? way to a bright to-morrow 
of victory. And if we have his faith, we shall believe that 
he who fights with his evil nature so strenuously and r 
desperately in this world, though overcome, shall rise agai; 
to conquer in that better world. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MERLIN AND VIVIEN; WISDOM VERSUS 
SENSUALISM. 

In love, if love be love, if love be ours, 

Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: 

Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 

It is the little rift within the lute, 

That by and by will make the music mute, 

And ever widening slowly silence all. 

The little rift within the lover's lute, 
Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, 
That rotting inward slowly moulders all. 

Merlin was the incarnation of intellect, he embodied the 
highest knowledge and wisdom of his day, he was "the most 
famous man of all those times/' famous not as knight, but 
as magician, counselor, wise man. He 

Knew the range of all their arts, 
Had built the king his havens, ships, and halls, 
"Was also bard, and knew the starry heavens ; 
The people called him wizard. 

[161-164. 

Vivien was the high priestess of sensualism. She was a 
hypocrite, backbiter, sensualist, seducer, demi-monde. The 
story of Merlin and Vivien delineates the conflict between 

51 



52 Merlin and Vivien 

Wisdom represented by Merlin and Sensualism represented 
by Vivien. It describes what the poet calls 

An ever-moaning battle in the mist, 
"World-war of dying flesh against the life. 

[190-1. 

It is the war of "flesh against the life/ 5 the bodily passions 
and appetites warring against the moral and spiritual life. 
Vivien striving to enthrall the wise man, and Merlin strug- 
gling to escape from her toils, is a parable of the strife 
between the flesh and the spirit. It is Wisdom versus Sen- 
sualism. 

The poet draws a clear contrast between Wisdom and 
Sensualism. They differ in their manner of judging. 
Wisdom is charitable in its judgments, looking for the 
good rather than the bad, interpreting the actions of men 
in the most favorable way, casting the mantle of charity 
over the faults of others, and "finding the best that glim- 
mers through the worst' 5 of men. Merlin refused to be- 
lieve the scandalous tales of the knights of the Round 
Table, mere rumor, or founded on slight pretext of sus- 
picion. And when facts compelled him to believe ill of 
some one, still he judged not harshly, pitying rather than 
condemning. And this is the wise way. It is the way of 
Him who said, "Judge not that ye be not judged. 55 It is 
the way of that love that "thinketh no evil. 55 It was the 
way of Burns, who urges, 

"Then gently scan your brother man. Still gentlier sister 

woman ; 
Though they may gang a kennin wrang. To step aside is 

human. 55 

This was the spirit of Merlin, this is Wisdom 5 ? way of 
judging. But Sensualism, which in the language of the 



Merlin - and Vivien 53 

Bible is synonymous with Folly, judges harshly, finds a 
verdict on the mere shadow of a suspicion, imagines evil 
where no evil exists, and imputes the worst of possible 
motives. Sensualism teaches its votaries to judge others 
by themselves. Being impure, they judge all their fellows 
impure. Being actuated by low motives, they impute low 
motives to others. Being base, they fain would believe all 
mankind base. As Merlin says, 

"They that most impute a crime 
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves, 
Wanting the mental range, or low desire 
Not to feel lowest makes them level all ; 
Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain, 
To leave an equal baseness ; and in this 
Are harlots like the crowd that if they find 
Some stain or blemish in a name of note, 
Not grieving that their greatest are so small, 
Inflate themselves with some insane delight, 
And judge all nature from her feet of clay, 
Without the will to lift their eyes and see 
Her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire, 
And touching other worlds." 

[823-836. 

So judged Vivien. Unchaste herself, she could not believe 
there was chastity in man or woman. Beadily did she be- 
lieve the scandal of the court, and her imagination added 
to every tale and made it worse. She 

Let her tongue 
Eage like a fire among the noblest names, 
Polluting, and imputing her whole self, 
Defaming and defacing, till she left 
Not even Lancelot brave nor Galahad clean. 

[799-803. 



54 Merlin and Vivien 

And herein lies another contrast between Wisdom and 
Sensualism. They differ in their speech. "Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Sensualism 
speaks to defame, to backbite, to slander, to drag down. 
"Face-flatterers and backbiters are the same/ 7 said Merlin, 
and such was Vivien. She smiled and spoke sweetly to 
one's face, but when his back was turned she stabbed him 
with insinuation and innuendo. She was a manufacturer 
and retailer of foul gossip. She belonged to the class de- 
scribed by St. Paul, "Whisperers, backbiters, inventors of 
evil things, without natural affection, unmerciful." She 
was what the Hebrew writer calls a whisperer. "The 
words of a whisperer," says the wise man, "are as dainty 
morsels, and they go clown into the innermost parts." 
Vivien whispered her scandal, and to purient minds her 
words were dainty morsels, and were greedily devoured, 
and they carried poison through the court. 

Vivien half-forgotten of the Queen 
Among her damsels broidering sat, heard, watched, 
And whispered. Through the peaceful court she crept 
And whispered ; then, as Arthur in the highest 
Leavened the world, so Vivien in the lowest, 
Arriving at a time of golden rest, 
And sowing one ill hint from ear to ear, 
While all the heathen lay at Arthur's feet, 
And no quest came, but all was joust and play, 
Leavened his hall. They heard and let her be. 

[135-144. 

"A whisperer separateth chief friends," and Vivien's whis- 
pering and scandal-mongering played no little part in cor- 
rupting and breaking up the Bound Table. Quite different 
is the speech of Wisdom. "The law of kindness is in her 
tongue." She scorns backbiting and tale-bearing. She 



Merlin and Vivien 55 

detests slander and eschews foul gossip. She delights to 
speak well of people, and has a charitable word even for 
the erring and the evil ones. Such was the speech of Mer- 
lin, the wise man. Whom Vivien defames, he defends. 
She tells every evil report she has heard concerning the 
knights, and he protests their innocence. When she points 
the finger of scorn at Guinevere and Lancelot, though he 
is too sincere to deny their guilt, he speaks of it only with 
pity and sorrow. Of all the knights of Arthur's hall, whose 
faults and virtues he best knew, he said, 

"I know the Table Round, my friends of old; 
All brave, and many generous, and some chaste/' 

[814-815. 

While Sensuality speaks the language of malediction, Wis- 
dom talks in the tongue of charity. Of either it may be 
said, "Thy speech betrayeth thee." 

But the most fundamental difference between Wisdom 
and Sensualism consists in their philosophy of life. Life, 
says Sensualism, is for pleasure, for sensual enjoyment, 
for the gratification of animal appetites and natural de- 
sires. Vivien, the worshiper and priestess of Sensualism, 
sets forth its philosophy of life in her song of "the fire of 
heaven." It is a glorification of sensual appetite. "The 
fire from heaven she speaks of," says Stopford Brooke, "is 
not the holy fire of the pure spirit; it is the fire of that 
heaven which some have conceived, and which consists in 
the full enjoyment of desire." She sees this blaze of desire 
in the budding trees, the blooming flowers, the singing 
birds ; 

"The fire of heaven is on the dusty ways, 
The wayside blossoms open to the blaze. 
The whole wood-world is one full peal of praise. 
The fire of heaven is not the flame of hell. 



56 Merlin and Vivien 

The fire of heaven is lord of all things good, 
And starve not thou this fire within thy blood, 
But follow Vivien through the fiery flood! 
The fire of heaven is not the flame of hell !" 

\_Balin and Balan, 442-449. 

This is what life is for, it is to feed this fire, to enjoy these 
natural appetites to the full. This is Vivien's philosophy 
of life, this is the philosophy of Sensualism. Over against 
this stands Wisdom's conception of life. Wisdom protests 
against this false philosophy, asserting that who yields tc 
the charm of Sensualism becomes "dead to life and use and 
name and fame." Life, says Wisdom, is for use, for serv- 
ice, for doing good to our fellows, for serving our day and 
generation. It is not for glory. Merlin told the story of 
a futile chase for the hart with the golden horns. The 
hunters met in a forest by a huge oak ; 

"While we waited, one, the youngest of us. 

We could not keep him silent, out he flashed, 

And into such a song, such fire for fame, 

Such trumpet blowing in it, coming down 

To such a stern and iron-clashing close, 

That when he stopped we longed to hurl together. 

And should have done it, but the beauteous beast 

Scared by the noise upstarted at our feet, 

And like a silver shadow slipped away 

Through the dim land. And all day long we rode 

Through the dim land against a rushing wind, 

That glorious roundel echoing in our ears, 

And chased the flashes of his golden horns 

Until they vanished by the fairy well." 

[413-426. 

Those who hold that life is for glory and follow after fame 



Merlin and Vivien 57 

will see their quarry, like the golden-antlered hart, slip 
away and vanish, and the chase of life will end in disap- 
pointment. One day Merlin found a youth who had carved 
a wooden shield, and was painting thereon his conception 
of life, a golden eagle flying toward the sun. It repre- 
sented his youthful aspiration for glory. And Merlin 

"Took his brush and blotted out the bird, 
And made a gardener putting in a graff, 
With this for motto, 'Rather use than fame'." 

[476-478. 

This is what life is for, use, not fame. And yet fame hath 
its uses, and may be desired, not for its glory and its pleas- 
ure, but as a means to larger usefulness. Says Merlin, 

"Fame with men, 
Being but ampler means to serve mankind, 
Should have small rest of pleasure in herself, 
But work as vassal to the larger love 
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. 
Use gave me fame at first, and fame again 
Increasing gave me use." 

[486-492. 



Life, then, is neither for the lower selfishness which seeks 
satisfaction in the senses, nor for the higher selfishness 
which seeks satisfaction in glory, but it is for service. This 
is Wisdom's philosophy of life. 

Let us now follow the thread of the narrative and trace 
the progress of this conflict. From the corrupt court of 
Mark comes Vivien to Arthur's hall to corrupt his court 



58 Merlin" and Vivien 

and break up his Table Round. Having put the poison in 
their hearts, 

As an enemy that has left 
Death in the living waters and withdrawn, 
The wily Vivien stole from Arthur's court. 

[145-147. 
But she did not go alone. She had determined upon the 
downfall of Merlin, the Wise. At first he regarded her 
with disdain, then with amusement, and thus he grew tol- 
erant of her presence, and was pleased with her flattery. 
And when Merlin, oppressed by a great melancholy, left the 
court, and embarked to depart, she went with him. When 
they landed she followed him far into the wild woods. And 
there she sought to learn from him a secret charm of which 
he had told her. 

For Merlin once had told her of a charm, 
With woven paces and with waving arms, 
The which if any wrought on any one 
The man so wrought on ever seemed to lie 
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower, 
From which there was no escape forevermore, 
Nor could he see but him who wrought the charm 
Coming and going, and he lay as dead 
And lost to life and use and name and fame. 
And Vivien ever sought to work the charm 
Upon the great enchanter of the time, 
As fancying that her glory would be great 
According to his greatness whom she quenched. 

[203-215. 

To win her wish she used all her arts. She made pretence 
of love, but not for this would he tell the charm. Then 
she affected wounded love, and accused him of breach of 
faith and lack of trust, singing of the little rift that makes 



Merlin and Vivien 59 

the music mute, but this plea did not obtain the charm. 
Then she pretended jealousy, exclaiming, 

li 

"0, to what end, except a jealous one, 
And one to make me jealous if I love, 
Was this fair charm invented by yourself? 
I well believe that all about this world 
Ye cage a buxom captive here and there, 
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower, 
From which is no escape f orevermore." 

[536-542. 

But the wise man only smiled and kept the secret to him- 
self. By and by in anger, upbraiding him with his unut- 
terable unkindness, she turned from him, and fell to weep- 
ing. The woods grew darker by reason of the coming 
storm, 

While his anger slowly died 
Within him, till he let his wisdom go 
For ease of heart, and half believed her true. 

[889-891. 

In pity he drew her to shelter in the hollow oak, and the 
storm raged without. And still the temptress plied her 
arts. And when the storm had passed, 

What should not have been had been, 

For Merlin, overtalked and overworn, 

Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept. 

Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm 

Of woven paces and of waving hands, 

And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, 

And lost to life and use and name and fame. 



v° Merlin and Vivien 

Then crying, "I have made his glory mine," 
And shrieking out, "0 fool !" the harlot leapt 
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed 
Behind her, and the forest echoed "fool/' 

[962-972. 

The battle was over. The temptress had triumphed. Sen- 
sualism had won the victory. The wise man had turned 
fool, and was "lost to life and use and name and fame." 
Lost, because when Temptation met him, he tolerated her, 
grew familiar with her face, endured, then pitied, then 
embraced. Lost, because he forgot that in the moral realm 



It is the little rift within the lute 

That by and by will make the music mute, 

And ever widening slowly silence all. 

[388-390. 

Lost to life, for he who has yielded to the seductions of 
sensualism is dead though yet alive. Lost to use, for the 
sensualist lives for self and for his lowest meanest self, 
and can add nothing to the wealth of humanity. Lost to 
name, for sensualism will tarnish the fairest name, and 
take from it the honor which once it rightly claimed, and 
make it a hissing and a reproach. Lost to fame, for sen- 
sualism is synonymous with shame, it blackens reputation, 
it brands its victim with the stigma of infamy and names 
him Ichabod. Those who yield, like Samson, are shorn of 
their strength, and blinded, and enslaved. Like Merlin, 
they become 

Lost to life and use and name and fame. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LANCELOT AND ELAINE; PURITY VERSUS 

PASSION. 

Loved her with all love except the love 

Of man and woman when they love their best, 

Closest and sweetest, and had died the death 

In any knightly fashion for her sake. 

And peradventure had he seen her first 

She might have made this and that other world 

Another world for the sick man; but now 

The shackles of an old love straitened him, 

His honor rooted in dishonor stood, 

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

Tennyson never wrote anything more pathetic and tender 
than this poem. It is exquisitely beautiful, yet exquisitely 
sad. It portrays a great soul struggling between two pow- 
erful motives, Lancelot, the greatest of Arthur's knights, 
standing between Guinevere, the Queen, and Elaine, the 
maiden of Astolat, debating and hesitating between the 
unlawful love of the one and the stainless love of the other. 
Guinevere and Elaine stand out on the poet's canvas in 
strong contrast. Both are beautiful, but they represent 
different types of beauty. Elaine is called the Lily Maid. 
The lily is her symbol. She, like the lily, is fair, stainless, 
immaculate, white-souled. Hers is the beauty of perfect 
purity. Of her emblems says Sir Lancelot, 

"See, how perfect-pure! As light a flush 
As hardly tints the blossom of the quince 
Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood." 

[Balm and Baton, 261-263. 

61 






62 Lancelot and Elaine 

As color would mar the beauty of the lily, so any stain of 
sensuality would mar the beauty of Elaine. She is the 
lily of womanhood. Guinevere is the rose, "deep-hued and 
many folded," rich in colors, heavy with fragrance, with a 
beauty that appeals to the senses and suggests passion 
rather than purity. Elaine has soul-beauty, Guinevere 
sense-beauty. And the characters of the two likewise stand 
in contrast. In the war of Sense against Soul, Elaine 
is on the side of the Soul. She is one in whom Soul is 
lord. In her Purity rules supreme. She embodies that 
saintly Chastity of which Milton says it is so dear to heaven 

"That, when a soul is found sincerely so, 

A thousand liveried angels lackey her, 

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 

And in clear dream and solemn vision 

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear; 

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants 

Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape, 

The unpolluted temple of the mind, 

And turns it by degrees to the souPs essence, 

Till all be made immortal." 

She is Purity personified or rather incarnated. But Guine- 
vere is on the side of Sense. In the warfare she has been 
overcome by Sense, and now is found fighting against Soul. 
In her Passion is dominant. In her heart she harbors and 
cherishes that unlawful desire, which as Milton also says, 
when it, 

"By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, 
Lets in defilement to the inward parts, 
The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
Embodies, and imbrutes till she quite lose 
The divide property of her first being." 



Lancelot and Elaine 63 

She is beautiful, brilliant, gentle, cultured, lovable, but 
unchaste. She is personified Passion. 

This poem - describes the contest between Passion and 
Purity for the possession of the citadel of Man-Soul. The 
heart of Lancelot is the battle-ground. Against Purity 
stands Passion with her allies, — Pleasure, Illicit Love, 
Unfaithful Fidelity, and Procrastination. Pleasure, 
though intended for man's good and a blessing when 
rightly used, is often debased and misused, and made to 
minister to the lusts of the flesh. And here, as ofttimes, 
Pleasure is found on the side of sin, fighting against right, 
urging the soul to yield to Passion. Lancelot found his 
highest pleasure in the company of the Queen. For that 
he would forego the delights of the chase and the tourna- 
ment, for that he would turn deaf ear to the call of duty, 
for that he would stifle conscience and barter honor, for 
that he would turn his back upon Purity and embrace 
Passion. 

And yet not for Pleasure alone. Lancelot was not a 
voluptuary. He was not like Gawain, who sought pleasure 
wherever it might be found, loving one maiden to-day and 
another to-morrow, despoiling every wayside flower of its 
sweetness to fill his cup of pleasure. Lancelot loved the 
Queen and her only. And this Illicit Love allied itself 
with Passion to battle against Purity for the possession of 
his soul. Lancelot allowed this Illicit Love to enter his 
heart, and yielded himself to it, and half excused himself, 
saying, that love is free and "free love will not be bound." 
A subtle fallacy that, and the more dangerous because of 
its subtlety. Love indeed cannot be bound against its will, 
it cannot be forced and constrained. But it can be re- 
strained, controlled, guided. We may not indeed love (in 
this sense) whom we would, but we can keep ourselves 
from loving whom we would not love. To cherish marital 



64 Lancelot and Elaine 

love for some one whom it were wrong so to love, and then 
to plead that love cannot be bound is confession of voli- 
tional and moral weakness unworthy of man or woman. 
This fallacy has been the ruin of many a life. Youths and 
maidens not yet bound, and men and women bound by 
marriage ties, need to recognize the power of the will over 
the affections and to assert that power and bring the affec- 
tions under the dominion of the will directed by the moral 
nature. Had Lancelot done this, far otherwise would have 
been his life. But no, he surrendered to Illicit Love, and 
ruined his life, and the Queen's, and Arthur's, and many 
others, and wrought desolation to the realm. Ah, this 
world is strewn with the wrecks of manhood and woman- 
hood that have been broken upon the rock of unchastity, 
lured thither by the sweet-songed siren of Illicit Love. 

Another foe of Purity was what we may call the Unfaith- 
ful Fidelity of Lancelot. 

His honor rooted in dishonor stood, 

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

[871-2. 

Being enamored of the Queen, and having exchanged vows 
of affection and fidelity with her, his sense of honor held 
him in this dishonor. His fidelity kept him unfaithful. 
His fidelity to the Queen made him unfaithful to the King, 
and really unfaithful to the welfare and happiness of the 
Queen. He had been more faithful to her had he broken 
his pseudo-faith, renounced this dishonorable love, and left 
her heart free to return to him to whom in holy marriage 
she had pledged her love. This would have been truer 
honor, this would have been more faithful fidelity. But 
he allowed his Unfaithful Fidelity to hold him fast in the 
bondage of Passion. It made him "love-loyal to the least 
wish of the Queen." And when once, in one of his better 



Lancelot and Elaine 65 

moments, he said to himself, "I needs must break these 
bonds that so defame me," he added, "Not without she wills 
it" — faithful to her in unfaithfulness. This is the same 
spirit which takes possession of those whose "sense of 
honor" impels them to dishonorable deeds, or those whose 
fidelity keeps them true to an unrighteous obligation, or 
those who feel obliged to keep a vow which they had no 
moral right to make and which would be better kept in its 
breach than its observance, or those whose constancy of 
character makes them loyal to an allegiance which ought to 
be broken. It is a bond which binds only noble souls, but 
one which the noblest souls will break, one which they must 
break or become ignoble. 

And Lancelot, being noble, meant to break this bond, 
but another foe stood up against him and prevented the 
carrying out of his purpose till too late. That foe was 
Procrastination. Time after time Lancelot resolved to 
break the chains that bound him, but ever he postponed 
action till some other time. When he was sick from the 
wound received in the tournament, "full many a holy vow 
and pure resolve he made," but the resolution was for to- 
morrow, not for to-day. When Elaine had died for love 
of him, he was so moved that he determined to break the 
bonds — sometime — if the Queen willed it! And by and 
by, when the Queen saw the danger of exposure, and be- 
sought him to leave her and return to his own land, "Lance- 
lot ever promised but remained." That evil spirit, Pro- 
crastination, ever whispered in his ear, "To-morrow, Lance- 
lot, to-morrow thou shalt go." "Delays have dangerous 
ends," says the bard of Avon, and Lancelot found it so. 
He procrastinated till the dreaded exposure came, and him- 
self and her he loved were shamed forever. His folly 
teaches us that we should 



66 Lancelot and Elaine 

"Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer; 
Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; 
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life. 
Procrastination is the thief of time; 
Year after year it steals till all are fled, 
And to the mercies of a moment leaves 
The vast concerns of an eternal scene." 

[Edward Young. 

Against passion are arrayed the friends and allies of 
Purity, — Friendship, Honor, Conscience, Religion, Legiti- 
mate Love. The Friendship between Lancelot and King 
Arthur uttered a silent protest against the breach of faith 
which Passion plead. How solemn the covenant of friend- 
ship made by these two on the battle-field ! The last great 
battle against the rebels had been fought, and the eagles of 
victory had perched on Arthur's banner. 

And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord. 

He laughed upon his warrior whom he loved 

And honored most. "Thou dost not doubt me king, 

So well thine arm hath wrought for me to-day." 

"Sir and my liege," he cried, "the fire of God 

Descends upon thee in the battle-field. 

I know thee for my king !" Whereat the two, 

For each had warded either in the fight, 

Swear on the field of death a deathless love. 

And Arthur said, "Man's word is God in man ; 

Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death." 

[Coming of Arthur, 123-133. 

It was like the old-time covenant of blood-brotherhood. 
After such a covenant as that how could Lancelot sin 
against Arthur? Every word, every look of the blameless, 



Lancelot and Elaine 67 

trustful King must have reproached the faithless friend, 
and condemned him for his sin. Soie was the battle with- 
in: 

The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, 

In battle with the love he bare his lord, 

Had marred his face, and marked it ere his time. 

[244-246. 

Honor upheld the cause of Purity; not that false "sense 
of honor" which was rooted in dishonor, but true Honor, 
that spotless reputation which is founded upon spotless 
character and noble deeds. Honor scorns falsehood and 
hypocrisy and treachery and unchastity, the vices which 
Passion engendered in the heart of Lancelot. Honor 
means 

To honor his own word as if his God's, 
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 

[Guinevere, 470-1. 

"Honor," says Dr. Hunger, "may- be defined as an exqui- 
site and imperative self-respect. Honor is an absolute and 
ultimate thing. The man of honor dies sooner than break 
its lightest behest. The man of honor may be trusted to 
the uttermost. It is akin to truth, but is more, — ita 
aroma, its flower, its soul." Honor bound Lancelot to 
Purity by a triple tie ; it bound him to be true to his word, 
and he had sworn to honor his word, and he had taken the 
vow of utter chastity. Lancelot, being knightly, loved 
Honor, and fain would have cherished her, and would have 
given her a home in his heart. But when he needs must 
choose between Passion and Honor, he elects Passion and 
lets Honor go. 

Conscience, too, fought valiantly for Purity. It put 
thorns upon the rose of Passion. It mingled wormwood 



68 Lancelot and Elaine 

with the cup of Pleasure. It made harsh discord in the 
music of Illicit Love. It showed how faithless was False 
Fidelity, and how empty was dishonorable honor. It filled 
the heart of Lancelot with a great remorse ; 

His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 
And drove him into wastes and solitudes 
For agony, who was yet a living soul. 

[250-2. 

It was Conscience which made him feel that his own name 
shamed him and reproached him. It was Conscience which 
cried out, 

"Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 
Not after Arthur's heart V 

[1408-09. 

It was Conscience which stung him and made him "groan 
in remorseful pain." It was Conscience which drove him 
into madness, and "whipt him into waste fields far away," 
where he was "beaten down by little men." It was Con- 
science which, at the seashore, stung him to desperation, 
and he said, 

"I will embark and I will lose myself, 
And in the great sea wash away my sin." 

[The Holy Grail, 802-3. 

But he found he could not wash away his sin in the sea, 
neither could he fly from Conscience. This faithful mon- 
itor stayed ever with him, denouncing Passion, pleading 
for Purity. 

On the side of Purity stood, also, Religion. Lancelot 
had been brought up in the nurture of that pure and unde- 
fined Religion which means "to keep oneself unspotted from 



Lancelot and Elaine 69 

the world." The Lady of the Lake is a personification of 
Religion, and of himself Lancelot says, 

"Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake 
Caught from his mother's arms — the wondrous one 
Who passes through the vision of the night — 
She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns 
Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn 
She kissed me, saying, "Thou art fair, my child, 
As a king's son,' and often in her arms 
She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere." 

[1393-1400. 

In childhood he had been nurtured on the bosom of Reli- 
gion, and in manhood he remembered her mysterious 
hymns, her tokens of love, her admonitions, and her gentle 
ministrations. The Holy Grail was Religion's ideal of per- 
fect purity of heart, and Lancelot's quest of the Grail sym- 
bolized his longing and vain struggling toward Purity. 
The Holy Grail was but Religion beckoning to him to for- 
sake Passion and attain Purity. 

The above aspects of the struggle are portrayed in 
various parts of the Idylls. But the main purpose of this 
poem is to set forth the part taken by Legitimate Love. 
It is the pure love of a virtuous woman pitted against the 
Illicit Love of the Queen. Arthur had found a crown set 
with nine diamonds, and once a year for eight years he had 
given a grand joust with a diamond for the prize. And 
Lancelot each time had won the prize, and was planning to 
make the tale complete and present the cluster to the 
Queen. When the last joust was appointed to contend for 
the central and largest diamond, Lancelot went not with 
the other knights, but feigned sickness and remained be- 
hind. But after they were gone, he determined to go 
incognito. He lost his way in the forest and came to the 



70 Lancelot and Elaine 

castle of Astolat. Here he was hospitably received, and 
here he met the Lily Maid, Elaine. She looked upon him 
"and loved him with that love which was her doom." He 
left his shield in her keeping, and borrowed that of her 
brother, Sir Torre, lest the lions on his shield should re- 
veal his identity. The simple-hearted maiden asked him 
to wear her token on his helmet at the joust, a red sleeve 
broidered with pearls. And he granted her request, partly 
to please her, partly to better conceal his identity, for 
never yet had he worn a token for any lady. Elaine kept 
the shield, 

Fashioned for it 
A case of silk, and braided thereupon 
All the devices blazoned on the shield 
In their own tinct, and added of her wit 
A border fantasy of branch and flower, 
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest, 

[7-12. 

and in the loom of fancy wove about every dint and scratch 
upon the shield a wondrous romance, and "so she lived in 
fantasy." Lancelot with Sir Lavaine, her brother, went to 
the joust, and Lancelot won the prize, but, sore wounded, 
hastened away and took refuge in a hermit's cave. There 
Elaine came to him, nursed him, ministered to him as only 
a gentle woman can, 

Meeker than any child to a rough nurse, 
Milder than any mother to a sick child, 
And never woman yet, since man's first fall, 
Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love 
Upbore her. 

[852-7. 



Lancelot and Elaine 71 

Her loving devotion, her maidenly modesty, her uncon- 
scious innocence, won his admiration and, in a measure, 
his love. He 

Would listen for her coming and regret 

Her parting step, and held her tenderly 

And loved her with all love except the love 

Of man and woman when they love their best, 

Closest and sweetest, and had died the death 

In any knightly fashion for her sake — 

And peradventure had he seen her first 

She might have made this and that other world 

Another world for the sick man; but now 

The shackles of an old love straitened him. 

[860-870. 

Mightily did the maiden's love contend against the adul- 
terous love that shackled his soul. And sometimes it 
seemed to have won till the bright image of another face 
came between him and the Lily Maid and "dispersed his 
resolution like a cloud." When he was convalescent he 
went to Astolat to rest awhile. And there he insisted that 
Elaine should ask some favor of him, some goodly gift, to 
repay her for her kindness. And said he, 

"Do not shun 
To speak the wish most near to your true heart ; 
Such service have ye done me that I make 
My will yours." 

[907-911. 

But she had given her love, her life, and there is only one 
thing that can repay love. And that her maidenly mod- 
esty forbade her to ask. And still Lancelot tarried to 



72 Lancelot and Elaine 

learn her wish. One morning he found her among the 
garden trees, and said to her, 

"Delay no longer, speak your wish, 
Seeing I go to-day." 

[919-920. 

And then suddenly, passionately, she uttered her wish — it 
leaped from her heart, she could not help it; 

"Your love," she said, "your love, to be your wife." 

[928. 

Ah, had it not been for that other love, that love born of 
Passion and sealed by secret sin, far otherwise would have 
been the answer of Lancelot. But he could only say, 

"Had I chosen to wed, 
I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine; 
But now there never will be wife of mine." 

Other favors he offered her, even to the half of his realm 
but she replied, "Of all this will I nothing," and swooning 
fell. And Lancelot took his departure. 

Elaine was stricken to the death, and she knew that she 
must die. Death like the voice of a friend called to her, 
and she harkened to the call, and welcomed death. Hei 
memory carried her back to childhood when her brothers 
used to take her in the boat up the river and she would cry 
because they would never pass the poplar tree and on to 
the palace of the king. And the old wish came back to 
her, and she asked that they would let her go and pass be- 
yond the tree, and far up the river to the palace. But i1 
was not in life she meant to make this strange voyage. She 
sent for the priest and prepared for death. She asked 
Levaine to write a letter as she dictated. Then she asked 
her father to lay the letter in her hand as she was dying. 



Lancelot and Elaine 73 

Slowly she faded away. On the eleventh morning her 
father put the letter in her hand and she died. And the\ 
placed her body on the boat, kissed her brows, and said 
farewell. 

Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, 
Oared by the dumb, went upward with the flood — 
In her right hand the lily, in her left 
The letter. [1146-1150. 

Lancelot had just given the diamonds to the Queen, and 
she, jealous of Elaine, had flung them into the river. 
While Lancelot gazed at the rippled surface, disdainfully, 
remorsefully, right under his eyes and across the spot 
where the diamonds had fallen came the barge with its 
fair burden, and on to the palace doorway. Then came 
Arthur and commanded the meek Sir Percivale and the 
pure Sir Galahad to bear the maiden form into the hall. 
And Arthur saw the letter and took it and read it ; it was 
a letter of love and farewell to Lancelot. It was a voice 
from the bier calling the great knight to Purity. 

Arthur gave command that she should be buried like a 
queen. And Lancelot followed in the train, "sad beyond 
his wont." For the fair face on the bier told of a love 
tenderer and purer and truer than his Queen's, and the 
silent lips plead more eloquently than ever for his love, and 
in death the Lily Maid called him from Passion to Purity. 
And Arthur said, 

"Let her tomb 
Be costly, and her image thereupon, 
And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 
Be carven, and her lily in her hand. 
And let the story of her dolorous voyage 
For all true hearts be blazoned on her tomb 
In letters gold and azure." [1328-1335. 



74 Lancelot and Elaine 

One day Lancelot went to meet the Queen in the palace 
garden. But the lilies caught his eye and reminded him 
of Elaine, and he turned aside. The Queen followed, and 
reproached him for his discourtesy, saying, "Ye stand as 
in a dream." 

Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers ; 
"Yea, — for a dream. Last night methought I saw 
That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand 
In yonder shrine. All round her pressed the dark, 
And all the light upon her silver face 
Flowed from the spiritual lily that she held. 
Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes — away." 

[Balin and Balan, 254-260. 

It was Purity still battling with Passion. It was Love 
calling to him from the grave, nay, calling from that other 
world, calling him to repentance and to holiness of life. 
And though Passion long triumphed, Purity finally won 
the day, for Lancelot "died a holy man." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE HOLY GRAIL; THE QUEST OF THE 

IDEAL. 

And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt 
With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall; 
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, 
And in the second men are slaying beasts, 
And on the third are warriors, perfect men, 
And on the fourth are men with growing wings, 
And over all one statue in the mould 
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown, 
And peaked wings pointed to the Northern Star. 

According to the old romances, the Holy Grail was the 
vessel used at the last supper in the Upper Room. Joseph 
of Arimathaea went into the room after the supper and 
took away this vessel. And on the morrow he received 
therein the last drops of blood from the wounds of Jesus. 
And the Grail with its precious blood he carried into Eng- 
land and kept it there in a church at Glastonbury. When 
he died or soon thereafter the Holy Grail disappeared, to be 
seen henceforth only by the pure in heart. And holy 
maidens, by fastings and prayers, and knights by deeds of 
valor and quests of noble adventure, sought for the vision 
of the Grail. In Tennyson's story the vision is seen first 
by a nun, sister of Percivale. The description is so ex- 
quisitely beautiful that I give it in the words of the poet. 
Said the nun to Percivale, 

"Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail; 
For, waked at night, I heard a sound 

76 



76 The Holy Grail 

As of a silver horn from o'er the hills 
Blown, and I thought, tf It is not Arthur's use 
To hunt by moonlight.' And the slender sound 
As from a distance beyond distance grew 
Coming upon me — never harp nor horn, 
Nor ought we blow with breath, or touch with hand, 
Was like that music as it came ; and then 
Streamed through my cell a cold and silver beam. 
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, 
Rose-read with beatings in it, as if alive, 
Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 
With rosy colors leaping on the wall; 
And then the music faded, and the Grail 
Past, and the beam decayed, and from the walls 
The rosy quiverings died into the night." 

[107-123. 

In this poem the Grail is intended to have an allegorical 
meaning. But it is not easy to say precisely what signifi- 
cance we should give it. Like most allegories and par- 
ables, it is capable of various interpretations, and which 
the author had in mind it is difficult to determine. The 
reader is prone to interpret it according to the bent of his 
own mind. It stands for asceticism, or for fanaticism, or 
for superstition, or for sensuous religion, or for purity, or 
for the ideal, according to the fancy of the reader. Even 
in the story, the Grail did not mean the same to all who 
sought it. To some it was only a marvel, a miracle which 
they fain would see for curiosity and for the name of it. 
To others it was a blessed vision of the blood of Christ, 
and symbolized purity of soul and union with Christ. 
"Out of the mystical twilight which envelopes the action," 
says Henry VanDyke, "this truth emerges: that those 
knights who thought of the Grail as only an external won- 



/ 



Th^Holy* Grail 77 

der, a miracle which they fain would see because others had 
seen it, 'followed wandering fires/ while those to whom it 
became a symbol of inward purity and grace, like Galahad 
and Percivale and even the dull, honest, simple-minded 
Bors and the sin-tormented Lancelot, finally attained unto 
the vision." I would say, then, that the quest of the Grail 
by the sensually minded like Gawain symbolizes the fol- 
lowing after the superstitious and sensuous forms of re- 
ligion, and that the quest of the Grail by the spiritually 
minded like Galahad, Percivale, Bors, and even Lancelot, 
symbolizes the quest of the ideal, the aspiration of the soul 
after purity, after perfection, after communion with God. 
The chief lessons of the poem are brought out in the expe- 
riences of the knights who sought and found the Grail and 
in the experience of Arthur who sought it not. 

Percivale relates the story to his fellow monk, Ambro- 
sius. After the knights had sworn the vow to ride twelve 
months and a day in quest of the Grail, they departed 
every one his own way. Percivale, alone, rode forth with 
light heart, exulting in his prowess, and confident of suc- 
cess. But when he thought of his sins, of his unworthi- 
ness, his heart failed him. and he despaired of the quest- 
Consumed with a raging thirst, he saw a rippling brook 
and goodly apples on the bank, and he thought, "I will 
give up the quest, I will content myself with the brook and 
the fruit and the shady lawn. 7 ' But while he drank the 
water and ate the fruit, suddenly they all turned to dust, 
and he was left in a desert with his thirst insatiate. Then 
he saw a beautiful house, and a kind woman, and a child, 
and she rose to welcome him. And despairing of the quest, 
he thought to tarry there. But when he touched the 
woman she turned to nothingness, and there remained only 
a broken shed and a dead babe; and these, too, fell into 
dust, and he was left alone with his thirst unsatisfied. 



78 The Holy Grail 

Then he met a knight in golden armor, with a crown of 
gold and jewels, riding a steed bedecked with gold and 
jewels. And the knight opened his arms to receive Per- 
civale, but, when touched, the knight with his gold and 
jewels fell into dust, and he was left alone, "wearying in a 
land of sand and thorns." Then he came to a city on a 
hill, and he heard a multitude at the gates, and they bade 
him welcome and hailed him mightiest and purest among 
men. And he thought to tarry in the city and accept their 
homage, but when he climbed the hill he found only deso- 
late ruins. And he cried, 



"Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself 
And touch it, it will crumble into dust ! ; 



[438-9. 



These phantoms are an allegory. Percivale's thirst is the 
soul's yearning after the spiritual need. The rippling 
brook and goodly apples signify the pleasures of sense, 
which satisfy the physical appetites. The woman, the 
child, the house, represent home and the joys of domestic 
life. The knight in golden armor is a personification of 
wealth. And the homage of the city on the hill is fame 
and position and power. The truth set forth in this alle- 
gory is that the things of earth, — pleasure, earthly love, 
wealth, fame, power, — cannot satisfy the deepest thirst of 
the soul. Nothing but the attainment of the spiritual 
ideal can satisfy this spiritual thirst. From this desolate 
hill of fame, Percivale dropped into the lowly vale of hu- 
miliation, and there he found a holy hermit who told him 
whv he had not seen the Grail : 

"0 son, thou hast not true humility, 

The highest virtue, mother of them all ; 

For when the Lord of all things made Himself 



The Holy Grail 79 

Naked of glory for His mortal change, 
'Take thou my robe/ she said, 'for all is thine/ 
And all her form shone forth with sudden light 
So that the angels were amazed, and she 
Followed Him down, and like a flying star 
Led on the gray-haired wisdom of the east. 
But her thou hast not known ; for what is this 
Thou though test of thy prowess and thy sins? 
Thou has not lost thyself to save thyself 
As Galahad." 

[445-457. 

Then came Galahad, and with Galahad he saw the Grail 
afar off. The experience of Percivale teaches that the 
vision of the ideal is hidden by pride and vain-glory, and 
by morbid reflection on one's sins and imperfections. Nei- 
ther self -exaltation nor despair is the way thereto. The 
road to its attainment is through the valley of humility. 
Truly, "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." 

In Arthur's hall was a mysterious chair, fashioned by 
Merlin, the magician, who called it the Siege Perilous. 
"For there/' said Merlin, "no man could sit but he should 
lose himself." And Merlin unintentionally sat in this 
chair, and so lost himself. But Galahad said, "If I lose 
myself, I find myself," and so sat down in the Seat Peril- 
ous and saw the Holy Grail. This allegorical chair is the 
seat of self-forgetfulness. Merlin forgot himself in the 
thought of sensualism, and "was lost to life and use and 
name and fame." Galahad forgot himself in the thought 
of Christ and holiness, and lost self, but saved himself. 
And henceforth the vision of the Grail was ever with him, 
night and day, 

"Fainter by day, but always in the night 
Blood-red, and sliding down the blackened marsh 



80 The Holy Grail 

Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top 
Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 
Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, 
Shattering all evil customs everywhere, 
And past through Pagan realms, and made them mine, 
And clashed with Pagan hordes, and bore them down, 
And broke through all, and in the strength of this 
Come victor/' [471-481. 

And led on by the glorious vision, he crossed the mystic 
bridge, and embarked upon the mysterious ocean, and went 
to be crowned king in the spiritual city. The lesson of 
Galahad's experience is that the ideal is attained through 
self-forgetfulness. The soul must lose itself and forget 
itself in Christ, it must be hid with Christ in God. As 
Jesus declares, "He that loseth his life for My sake shall 
find it." When Love takes up the harp of life, and smites 
the chord of self, which trembles in music out of sight, 
then, and only then, comes the heavenly vision. 

Sir Bors is the type of the plain, commonplace, un- 
imaginative, but honest, faithful, loyal-hearted man. He 
could hardly be said ro have gone in quest of the Grail. 
So little did he esteem himself that he scarcely dared hope 
to see it. One day Sir Lancelot crossed his path, riding 
furiously, driven mad by conscience. And Bors was so 
grieved for the affliction of his kinsman that 

He well had been content 
Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen, 
The Holy Cup of healing; and, indeed, 
Being so clouded with his grief and love, 
Small heart was his after the holy quest. 
If God would send the vision, well ; if not, 
The quest and he were in the hand of Heaven. 

[650-656. 



The Holy Gkail 81 

Among the heathen he rode, and there he was seized and 
bound and thrust into a dungeon of stones. And in the 
night a stone fell from his prison wall, and through the 
opening he saw the Seven Stars; 

"And then to me, to me," 
Said good Sir Bors, "beyond all hopes of mine, 
Who scarce had prayed or asked it for myself — 
Across the seven clear stars — grace to me ! — 
In color like the ringers of a hand 
Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail 
Glided and past, and close upon it pealed 
A sharp, quick thunder." 

[686-693. 

Sir Bors wished for the vision for another more than for 
himself. In self-renunciation he found the Holy Grail. 
His experience teaches that altruism or brotherly love is a 
condition of attaining the spiritual ideal. As long as we 
desire it and pursue it for ourselves alone we shall not find 
it, we shall not even see it from afar. But when we seek 
the beatitude for our fellows also, then indeed we shall find 
it. "Heaven's gate," says Whittier, "is shut to him who 
comes alone." And heaven's windows, too, are closed to 
him who asks for the outpouring of the blessings upon his 
own heart only. Only the altruistic eye can see the vision 
of the true ideal, and enjoy its benediction. 

Lancelot also had sworn the vow. Tormented by re- 
morse for his sin, he sought the Grail with a vague hope 
it might deliver him from his sins. Virtue and vice had 
grown together in his heart like two flowers, a wholesome 
and a poisonous, so intertwined that it seemed to him they 
could not be plucked apart. But a holy man had told him 
that except they could be plucked asunder his quest was 
vain. And as he strove to tear the two apart, his madness 



83 The Holy Grail 

came upon him. He came to the seashore and embarked, 
and seven days was driven over the storm-tossed sea. He 
came to the enchanted castle of Carbonek. Passing the 
lions who guarded the entrance, he climbed the stairway 
of the hall tower till he came to a door. What he saw and 
heard we will let him relate ; 

"A light was in the crannies, and I heard, 
'Glory and joy and honor to our Lord 
And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail V 
Then in my madness I essayed the door; 
It gave, and through a stormy glare, a heat 
As from a seven-times-heated furnace, I, 
Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, 
With such a fierceness that I swooned away — 
yet me thought I saw the Holy Grail, 
All palled in crimson samite, and around 
Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes ! 
And but for all my madness and my sin, 
And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw 
That which I saw; but what I saw was veiled 
And covered, and this quest was not for me." 

[835-849. 

The lesson of his experience is plain. Sin blinds our eyes 
to the vision of the ideal. If sin be in our hearts the ideal 
is veiled and covered. If we look for it, we see it but 
dimly, imperfectly, vaguely, and we know not whether we 
see it or not. Only the pure in heart can see God. Only 
through renunciation of sin, and the cleansing power of 
the Divine Spirit can we attain unto the ideal. Only 
through spiritual eyes can we see the spiritual vision. 
"The unspiritual man/' says St. Paul, "reeeiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto 



The Holy Grail 83 

him; and he cannot know them, because they are spirit- 
ually judged." 

Arthur did not go in quest of the Grail. Duty held 
him at his post. When some one intimated that had he 
seen what the rest had seen he, too, had sworn the vow, 
he replied, 

"Not easily, seeing the King must guard 

That which he rules, and is but as the hind 

To whom a space of land is given to plow, 

Who may not wander from the allotted field 

Before his work be done, but, being done, 

Let visions of the night or of the day 

Come as they will." [901-907. 

With him duty comes first, ideals and visions second. He, 
too, seeks and finds the ideal, but not as Galahad. Gala- 
had sees a mystical vision, and turns aside from the ordi- 
nary duties of life to follow the vision. And being a mys- 
tic, and being sincere and pure in heart, he finds the ideal, 
and in the ideal he finds the real. Arthur finds the ideal 
in the real. He finds it in the common, plain duties of 
life. As he goes forward in the performance of his God- 
appointed work, the ideal is revealed to him, he sees the 
spiritual world all about him, visions come to him, 

"Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, 

This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, 

This air that smites his forehead is not air 

But vision — yea, his very hand and foot — 

In moments when he feels he cannot die, 

And knows himself no vision to himself, 

Nor the high God a vision, nor that One 

Who rose again." [908-915. 



84 The Holy Grail 

This, according to Tennyson, is the better way for most 
of us. A few mystical souls may indeed be justified in 
following some visionary ideal ; the world needs a few such 
idealists. But such a quest is not for all. Most of us are 
far wiser to seek the ideal, not in the visionary, but in the 
real, in the plain duty that lies near at hand. The reli- 
gion of common sense and of common life is the religion 
for us common people. The ethical ideal rather than some 
mystical ideal should be the object of our quest. And if 
this we follow, we, too, shall attain the spiritual ideal. 
The path of duty is the way to spiritual glory. 

"He that walks it, only thirsting 

For the right, and learns to deaden 

Love of self, before his journey closes, 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purple, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden roses. 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Through the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward and prevailed, 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is sun and moon " 

[Tennyson: Death of Wellington. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

PELLEAS AND ETTARRE; INNOCENCE 
VERSUS WICKEDNESS. 

A rose, but one, none other rose had I, 
A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair, 
One rose, a rose that gladdened earth and sky, 
One rose, my rose, that sweetened all mine air — 
I cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there. 

One rose, a rose to gather by and by, 
One rose, a rose to gather and to wear. 
No rose but one — what other rose had I? 
One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die- 
He dies who loves it — if the worm be there. 

The quest of the Grail had matfe many gaps in the Table 
Round. Of those who had gor,j on the quest scarce a 
tithe had returned. Of those who found the vision, one 
had gone into the Spiritual City, another into a monastery. 
Of those who found it not, most had wandered far into 
other lands, leaving the welfare of the realm to other hands 
to guard. To fill the vacant places, King Arthur made 
new knights. Among these was Pelleas, an ingenuous 
youth, innocent, simple-hearted, trustful, pure in heart, 
and thinking no evil. Soon after he was knighted, Arthur 
announced a tournament, and the prizes for the winner 
were a golden circlet and a sword. Pelleas was on his way 
to this tournament when he met Ettarre with her train of 
damsels and knights. They, too, had started to the tour- 

85 



86 Pelleas and Ettarre 

nament, but had lost their way. Ettarre asks Pelleas to 
guide them to their destination, and he gladly consents. 
He is heart-free, but he has long been in love with an ideal 
maiden. When he looks upon Ettarre he sees in her his 
ideal, and at once becomes enamored. 

The beauty of her flesh abashed the boy, 
As though it were the beauty of her soul ; 
For as the base man, judging of the good, 
Puts his own baseness in him by default 
Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend 
All the young beauty of his own soul to hers. 

[74-79. 

He judged her character by her physical appearance. Be- 
cause she was beautiful in face and form he judged her 
beautiful in soul. He learned afterwards to his sorrow 
that he had misjudged her, that the fair face concealed an 
ugly soul. His folly should teach us not to make the 
same mistake. It will not do to judge by the outward 
appearance. There may be poison in the heart of the most 
beautiful flower. There may be "A goodly apple rotten 
at the core." And there may be a goodly kernel concealed 
by the prickly burr. A diamond of the first water may 
appear only an unsightly pebble. Cleopatra was one of 
the most beautiful of women, but one of the vilest. Abe 
Lincoln was one of the homeliest of men, but one of the 
noblest. The fair-appearing man may be a scoundrel, the 
ugly-featured man may be a saint. The angelic-looking 
woman may be foul-hearted, the homely one an angel. 
There are many who "outwardly appear beautiful, but in- 
wardly are full of all uncleanliness." If, therefore, we 
would avoid the mistake of Pelleas we must "judge not 
according to appearance." 

Pelleas escorts Ettarre to Caerleon, and on the way she 



Pelleas and Ettarre 8? 

smiles upon him and makes him her slave. She covets 
the golden circlet and the glory of being named "Queen 
of Beauty" at the tournament. She pretends to love Pel- 
leas, and boldly asks him to win the prize for her, prom- 
ising her love as his reward. He contends, wins the prize, 
and bestows it upon her. Thenceforth she is gracious to 
him no longer. She has no further use for the raw youth, 
and fain would be rid of him. But he is not easily dis- 
posed of. He follows her to her castle, and when locked 
out watches before her gates. Though insulted, he refuses 
to be rebuffed, and takes it all as trial of his love. Finally 
she has him bound, he yielding to the humiliation for 
love's sake, and thrusts him out of her gates. He has 
served her purpose, he has won the circlet, he has obtained 
for her the ambition she wished, now let him begone ! The 
way she used him seems so mean and contemptible that we 
would not believe such possible did we not see it in real 
life. We see it in the maiden who flirts with a youth, for 
the mere pleasure of the hour, and sends him away with 
a wounded heart and with faith in womanhood shattered. 
We see it in the youth who plays with a woman's heart as 
with a toy, and tosses it from him when tired of his play- 
thing. We see it in all who debase the sacred relations of 
friendship and love to sensual and sordid and selfish pur- 
poses. We see it in all who use their fellows as mere steps 
on which to climb to selfish success. Kant interprets the 
Golden Rule to mean, "treat humanity ever as an end, 
never as a means, to thy own selfish ends." Ettarre treated 
Pelleas as a mere means to her own selfish ends, and so 
disobeyed the Law of Love. 

At the time of Pelleas's final rebuff Gawain appears upon 
the scene. He is the type of the fickle-hearted man. He 
was called "light-of-love." It was not his nature "to love 
one maiden only, cleave to her, and worship her by years of 



88 Pelleas and Ettarbe 

noble deeds," until he had won her for his wife. In his 
eyes one beautiful woman was just as lovable as another, 
and he shifted his affections as oft as his eyes gazed upon 
some new attraction. Not only was he light in love, but 
loose in morals. The honor and virtue of womanhood were 
little esteemed by him, and carelessly trampled under foot 
to gratify his pleasure. He was faithless, too, to his 
friends. He proved traitor to Pelleas. Pretending friend- 
ship and proffering help, he is utterly false. Learning 
from Pelleas of his rebuff, he offers to go to Ettarre and 
sing his praises in her ears till she shall wish him back. 
Instead he wins her for himself, not in true love, but in its 
shameful counterfeit. And yet this man was not without a 
"sense of honor." He had his standard of honor. When 
he saw three knights attacking Pelleas, that to him was 
villainous, and through his heart flashed "the fire of honor 
and all noble deeds." What a sense of honor is this which 
burns with indignation at the evil in others but is blind to 
the baseness in one's own heart ! Gawain even chides Pel- 
leas for defaming the brotherhood of knighthood in allow- 
ing himself to be bound by the cravens he had overthrown. 
He did not realize that he himself was held by bonds far 
more shameful, and that he was ever defaming the brother- 
hood by his life. And yet this knight was the flower of 
courtesy. In politness he was par excellence. He had the 
bearing of a noble knight and the manners of a gentleman. 
This is a true picture from life. After all is said of the 
value of courtliness and the relation of good manners to 
good morals, still it is possible for the false and the lewd 
to hide his character under the manners of a gentleman. 
Let us learn from Gawain this lesson : manners are not 
morals, courtliness is not character, politeness is not a 
prima facie proof of purity; — all this may be "but the 
guiled shore to a most dangerous sea." 



Pelleas and Ettarre 89 

Gawain not returning at the promised time, Pelleas at 
night enters the unguarded gates and goes to investigate 
for himself. All within are asleep, and in a gay pavilion 
he finds Gawain and Ettarre sleeping side by side. Im- 
pelled to slay the guilty pair, he resists the temptation, lays 
his sword across their throats, and goes forth into the dark- 
ness. His ideal is shattered, his love is blasted, his faith 
in man and woman is well-nigh murdered, he doubts 
whether there is any truth and honor and goodness in all 
the world, and he is wild with grief and rage and disap- 
pointment and despair. In this state of mind he meets 
Percivale, — Percivale, the pure; Percivale, the idealist; he 
who has seen the Holy Grail. Surely here is the man to 
rescue the youth from his despair and madness ! He can 
tell him of one woman who is pure, of more than one knight 
who is true and chaste, of the great King whose integrity 
is unshaken and whose honor is untarnished, — ah, he can 
tell of his vision of the Grail, symbol of an ideal attain- 
able and attained. But Percivale sadly fails to rise to the 
opportunity. Instead of lifting the youth out of his dark- 
ness and despair, he plunges him still deeper therein. By 
his insinuations and his silences, he adds fuel to the flame. 
He makes Pelleas believe that the Queen and Lancelot and 
all the knights of the Table Round are false, and even 
bears no clear testimony to the King. He who had seen 
the glorious vision holds out no beacon light to his fellow 
stumbling in the darkness. And because of his default, 
Pelleas is plunged the deeper in the gulf of dark despair. 
The lesson for us is plain. It behooves us to go to the 
help of the souls that have been worsted in the conflict 
with the wickedness of the world. If there is in our hearts 
any vestige of doubt, despair, pessimism, we should reso- 
lutely hide it. And whatever we have of faith, of hope, 
of aspiration, of idealism, of optimism, we should share 



90 Pelleas and Ettarre 

with our fellows. If we have faith, let us impart it to 
others; if we have hope, let us inspire it in others; if we 
have caught the vision of a noble ideal, let us point others 
thereto. Thus shall we rescue souls that are sinking in 
doubt and despair. 

Pelleas vaults upon his horse and furiously rides towards 
Camelot. Near the gates he meets and challenges Lance- 
lot, who is riding forth gaily, all forgetful of his sins. 
Says Lancelot, 

"What name hast thou 
That ridest here so blindly and so hard ?" 
"No name, no name," he shouted, "a scourge am I 
To lash the treasons of the Table Bound." 
"Yea, but thy name ?" "I have many names," he cried ; 
"I am wrath and shame and hate and evil name, 
And like a poisonous wind I pass to blast 
And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the Queen." 
"First over me," said Lancelot, "shalt thou pass." 

[551-559. 

They fight and Pelleas is overthrown. Defiantly he courts 
death, but Lancelot bids him rise. Slowly and sadly 
Lancelot rides back to Camelot and Pelleas follows. At 
the same moment they enter the Hall where sits the Queen 
with her knights and ladies. Pelleas does not greet the 
Queen, but only scowls. Seeing the dark countenance of 
the young knight, she speaks kindly to him, offering her 
sympathy and help. 

But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce 

She quailed, and he, hissing, "I have no sword," 

Sprang from the door into the dark. 

[589-591. 



Pelleas and Ettarre 91 

And this is the last we hear of him. Dark-souled, he goes 
out into the darkness, and is lost in the black night of 
despair and misanthropy. But he leaves behind him gloom 
and fearful forboding. The guilty Queen 

Looked hard upon her lover, he on her, 

And each foresaw the dolorous day to be ; 

And all talk died, as in a grove all song 

Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey. 

Then a long silence came upon the hall, 

And Modred thought, "The time is hard at hand." 

[592-597. 

The harvest of sin is near at hand. The guilt of Lancelot 
and Guinevere is about to reap the terrible harvest of 
shame and sorrow and national woe. Their example has 
corrupted society, and a corrupt society has ruined the life 
of Pelleas. But the day of vengeance is at hand. 

This idyll is but a continuation of the story of the war 
of Sense against Soul. It represents a pure soul strug- 
gling in the toils of a debased society. It pictures Inno- 
cence at war with Wickedness. Ettarre represents a god- 
less society where truth and purity and honor are unknown, 
where the Sense rules supreme, and where Innocence is an 
unwelcome guest. Pelleas personifies Innocence joined to 
simplicity, Innocence inexperienced, ignorant of the ways 
of the world. When the disillusionment comes, he is not 
able to stand the shock and goes down in defeat. The 
idyll is Tennyson's picture of the balefulness of a godless, 
sensual society. It is his warning against the evil of sen- 
sualism to the individual, to society, and to the state. 



CHAPTEE X. 

THE LAST TOURNAMENT; THE SIGNS 
OF NATIONAL DECAY. 

"Is it then so well? 
Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he 
Of whom was written, 'A sound was in his ears'? 
The foot that loiters, bidden go — the glance 
That only seems half loyal to command — 
A manner somewhat fallen from reverence — 
Or have I dreamed the bearing of our knights 
Tells of a manhood ever less and lower? 
Or whence the fear lest this my realm, upreared 
By noble deeds at one with noble vows, 
From fiat confusion and brute violences, 
Reel back into the beast, and be no more?" 

It is the eve of the nation's downfall. Events are hast- 
ening to a close. The tragic end of the Round Table and 
the kingdom is near at hand. This idyll is a melancholy 
picture of a nation toppling on the brink of ruin. With 
artistic skill the poet paints a melancholy day, and throws 
over it a shadow of gloom. The season is autumn, and the 
fading leaves symbolize the fading glory of the nation. 
The day is threatening, gustful, cloudy, ending in drench- 
ing rain. There is gloom in the heart of the Queen, who 
unconsciously sighs as she watches the King ride away, 
and "in her bosom pain is lord." There is gloom in the 
heart of Lancelot, who moves to the lists "with slow, sad 
steps," sits languidly in the umpire's chair, "sighing 
wearily, as one who sits and gazes on a faded fire." There 

92 



The Last Tournament 93 

is gloom in the heart of Arthur, who has a premonition 
of coming evil and is weighted down with 

"The fear lest this my realm, upreared 
By noble deeds at one with noble vows, 
From flat confusion and brute violences, 
Keel back into the beast, and be no more." 

[122-125. 

It was a dolorous day, for the realm was indeed reeling 
back into the beast, and soon would be no more. And in 
this idyll we read the signs of national decay. 

There was a brazen contempt for law and authority. 
This is shown in the story of that quondam knight of 
Arthur's who set up a Eound Table of his own in opposi- 
tion to that of the King, a knighthood of villainy and lust 
and shame, sworn counter to all the noble vows of Arthur's 
hall. They rob, they murder, they hang the knights of 
the King's order, they revel in drunkenness and lewdness, 
and send a message of insolence and defiance to the King. 
Arthur goes against them and destroys them, but the spirit 
of lawlessness and contempt for authority is abroad. 

"The foot that loiters, bidden go, — the glance 
That only seems half loyal to command," 

[117-118. 

this the King feels all about him. The knights are bab- 
bling about the King, "whether he were king by courtesy 
or king by right," disputing his authority and trampling 
underfoot his laws. And Modred is plotting rebellion. 
And surely this, the loss of respect for rightful authority 
and the contempt for just laws, is a sign of national decay 
in any age and any land. 

There was a decadence of that virtue which the King 



94 The Last Tournament 

valued so highly — courtesy. Even he, blind though ho 
seemed to the growing corruption of his realm, detected in 
his knights "a manner somewhat fallen from reverence," 
and saw in their bearing evidence of degenerating man- 
hood. The tournament had become an exhibition of bad 
manners. The laws of the tournament were openly disre- 
garded. One knight "cursed the dead babe and the follies 
of the king." Tristram, the popular hero of the day, and 
the winner of the prize, was rudely discourteous to the 
ladies. The evening feast was so boisterous and unman- 
nerly that the Queen broke it up. The day furnished evi- 
dence for the verdict of one who murmured, "All courtesy 
is dead," and of Lancelot, who muttered, "The glory of 
our Round Table is no more." This, too, was a sign of 
national decay. Good morals and good manners are close 
akin. "Manners are not idle," says our poet, "but the 
fruit of loyal nature and of noble mind." Courtesy may 
indeed be counterfeited. Good manners may be cultivated 
by a sensualist as Gawain. But true courtesy accompanies 
true character. "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." 
A pure, true heart cannot be rude and discourteous. It 
may break conventional rules of etiquette, but it cannot 
break the essential laws of courtesy. National courtesy, 
therefore, is a sign of national character, and the decadence 
of national courtesy is a symptom of national decay. 

There was a loss of national ideals. What lofty ideals 
Arthur had set before his knights ! He had sworn them 

"To reverence the King as if he were 

Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To honor his own word as if his God's, 



The Last Tournament 95 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 
To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 
And worship her by years of noble deeds, 
Until they won her." 

[Guinevere, 465-474. 

What ideals of loyalty, of conscientiousness, of patriotism, 
of charity in deed and in word, of honor and truth and 
chastity, of allegiance to the Christ ! These were the ideals 
which had made the nation great. These were the stars 
which the knights had once followed. But now their eyes 
were blinded to them. They no longer reverenced the 
King, nor obeyed conscience, nor eschewed slander, nor 
esteemed purity, nor worshiped womanhood, nor followed 
the Christ. Their great ideals were lost. The star of 
noble knighthood, like the Holy Grail, had vanished. It 
made "a silent music up in heaven," but only Dagonet and 
Arthur and the angels and the elect few could see and hear 
it. Sad indeed it is when a nation loses its great ideals. 
Such a misfortune is both a cause and a symptom of na- 
tional decadence. That hour had come to Arthur's king- 
dom. The glory of the Round Table was no more. 

A nation without ideals is a nation without character. 
Morality cannot survive the loss of noble ideals. When 
men lose these they let go of morality. And this, too, had 
come to pass in Arthur's realm; — Innocence was dead. 
This is symbolized by the dead babe whose jewels were the 
prize of the tournament. Arthur and Lancelot, riding one 
day beside a cliff, heard the cry of a child overhead. In a 
broken oak above the cliff they saw an eagle's nest, and in 
the nest Lancelot found a maiden babe with a ruby neck- 
lace around her neck. The babe was given to Guinevere, 
who received it coldly but learned to love it tenderly. But 
the exposure had brought on deep-seated disease, which 



96 The Last Tournament 

soon took it away. Then the Queen, giving the jewels to 
Arthur, said, 

"Take thou the jewels of this dead innocence, 
And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney-prize. 

[31-32. 

Perchance — who knows ? — the purest of thy knights 
May win them for the purest of thy maids." 

[49-50. 

This tournament was called the Tournament of the Dead 
Innocence. The prize was won by Tristram, and given to 
Queen Isolt, wife of Mark ! The babe is a symbol of inno- 
cence, and this dead babe signifies the death of Innocence 
in the realm. The jewels of Dead Innocence won by Tris- 
tram, the free-lover, and worn by Isolt, the faithless wife 
of Mark ! What a picture of the moral degradation of the 
realm ! Tristram is the hero of the hour and the popular 
ideal, and to him Innocence is dead. His song expresses 
the morality of the day; 

"Free-love — free field — we love but while we may. 
The woods are hushed, their music is no more; 
The leaf is dead, their yearning passed away. 
New leaf, new life — the days of frost are o'er; 
New life, new love, to suit the newer day; 
New loves are sweet as those that went before. 
Free love — free field — we love but while we may." 

[275-281. 

Tristram is the masculine counterpart of Vivien, and his 
song of Free-love is a fit companion to her song of the 
Fire of Heaven. Vivien has won, Sensuality has con- 
quered, Innocence is dead, and Free-rove walks trium- 



The Last Tournament 97 

phantly over its grave. And the nation hastens to de- 
struction. So also does the free-lover. Deserting his 
bride of Brittany, he returns to his mistress of Britain. 
To her he gives the necklace as "his last love-offering and 
peace-offering. " 

But, while he bowed to kiss the jeweled throat, 
Out of the dark, just as the lips had touched, 
Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek — 
"Mark's way," said Mark, and clove him through the 
brain. 

[745-748. 

The one bright spot in this picture is Dagonet, the fool. 
He is the true hero of this idyll. "He knows that Arthur's 
dream will never be fulfilled, knows that the Queen is false, 
and the knights are plotting treason, and the whole realm 
is on the verge of ruin ; but still he holds fast to his master, 
and believes in him, and will not break his allegiance to fol- 
low the downward path of the court. Arthur has lifted him 
out of the baseness of his old life and made him a man. 
Maimed in wits and crippled in body, yet he has a soul, — 
this little, loyal jester, — and he will not lose it"* When 
others are corrupt and sensualism is fashionable, he re- 
mains pure. Tristram is no hero of his, and he refuses 
to dance to the music of the free-lover. When others are 
false to the King he remains loyal. When the fateful day 
had come, when Modred's hour had arrived and his con- 
spiracy was ripe, when the dreaded exposure had been made 
and Lancelot and the Queen had fled, 

That night came Arthur home, and while he climbed, 
All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom, 
The stairway to the hall, and looked and saw 

* Van Dyke's Poetry of Tennyson. 



98 The Last Tournament 

The great Queen's bower was dark, — about his feet 
A voice clung sobbing till he questioned it, 
"What art thou ?" and the voice about his feet 
Sent up answer, sobbing, "I am thy fool, 
And I shall never make thee smile again." 

[749-756. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

GUINEVERE; RETRIBUTION AND 
REDEMPTION. 

"To reverence the King, as if he were 

Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To honor his own word as if his God's, 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 

To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 

And worship her by years of noble deeds, 

Until they won her; for indeed I knew 

Of no more subtle master under heaven 

Than is the maiden passion for a maid, 

Not only to keep down the base in man, 

But teach high thought, and amiable words, 

And courtliness, and the desire of fame, 

And love of truth, and all that makes a man." 

In this idyll is related the crisis foreboded and hinted 
at in the Last Tournament. The illicit relations of Lance- 
lot and the Queen, long suspected by every one save the 
guileless King, is at last brought to light. Modred, hating 
Lancelot, and coveting the throne, has been watching for 
an opportunity to expose their guilt and thus alienate 
Lancelot and the King and break up the Round Table, and 
then seize the throne. The long-looked-for opportunity 
comes. Lancelot and Guinevere have appointed a night in 
the King's absence when they would take their farewell 

99 



100 Guinevere 

and he would go to his own land. Vivien, eavesdropping, 
tells Modred, and he brings his followers to the Queen's 
tower, and discovers Lancelot and the Queen together. 
Like a lion at bay, Lancelot springs upon him and hurls 
him to the ground. Then they flee, he at her request to his 
own land, she to the cloister of Almsbury. While the King 
is warring with Lancelot, Modred raises the standard of 
revolt and calls the heathen to his help. The King visits 
Guinevere at the cloister, and then marches against Mod- 
red. She repents of her sins, becomes a nun, by and by 
the abbess, and dies in peace. This is the bare outline of 
one of the saddest, most pathetic poems ever written. Leav- 
ing the reader to discover the beauty and pathos for him- 
self, it is my purpose to point out the ethical and spiritual 
lessons of the poem. 

This idyll teaches the penalty of illicit love. We have 
seen how Lancelot was tormented by remorse. Here we 
see how Guinevere also suffered for her sin. Conscience 
became her accusing angel and tormentor; 

The Powers that tend the soul 
To help it from the death that cannot die, 
And save it even in extremes, began 
To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours, 
Beside the placid breathings of the King, 
In the dead night, grim faces came and went 
Before her, or a vague spiritual fear 
Held her awake ; or if she slept she dreamed 

An awful dream 

And all this trouble did not pass but grew, 
Till even the clear face of the guileless King, 
And trustful courtesies of household life, 
Became her bane. 

[64-86. 



Guinevere 101 

Thus did conscience punish her for her sin. Shame, bitter 
shame, also became her portion. When her guilt was dis- 
covered she exclaimed, "The end is come and I am shamed 
forever/' In the convent, in her despair, she moans, 

"The shadow of another cleaves to me, 

And makes me one pollution. He, the King, 

Called me polluted. Shall I kill myself ? 

What help in that? I cannot kill my sin, 

If soul be soul, nor can I kill my shame; 

No, nor by living can I live it down. 

The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months, 

The months will add themselves and make the years, 

The years will roll into the centuries, 

And mine will ever be a name of scorn." 

[613-622. 

The loss of good name, the loss of respect, the breaking up 
of the home, social ostracism, eternal shame, remorse, — 
these are the penalties which fall upon the violator of the 
marriage law. 

But the punishment of the guilty ones is not the whole 
consequence of this sin. The poem shows how sin affects 
others, how its influence reaches far and wide. The ex- 
ample of Lancelot and Guinevere leads others to sin. After 
this liaison in high life, 

"Came the sin of Tristram and Isolt ; 

Then others, following these my mightiest knights, 

And drawing foul ensample from fair names, 

Sinned also, till the loathsome opposite 

Of all my heart had destined did obtain." 

[4S5-489. 



102 Guinevere 

For was this all. The breaking up of the Round Table 
and the ruin of the realm was traceable directly to the sin 
of Guinevere. The King said to her truly, 

"The children born of thee are sword and fire, 
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, 
The craft of kindred and the godless hosts 
Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea." 

[422-424. 

Arthur's fair dream was shattered and his heart was broken 
and his kingdom destroyed and himself and many others 
sent to death by this sin. Such was the terrible harvest 
of this illicit love. This is one of the chief lessons Ten- 
nyson would enforce in the Idylls. "He looked, and in the 
direst light, on the growth of sensuality, on the indiffer- 
ence to purity, on the loosening of the marriage vow, on 
the unchaste results of luxury of life, on the theory and 
practice of free love, as one of the worst evils, and perhaps 
the worst, which can inflict individual, social, and national 
life."* He tells the story of Lancelot and Guinevere to 
show the terrible consequences of loose morals and un- 
chastity among the upper classes. "He brings all the ruin 
back to them. It is their guilt also which made the inva- 
sion of the court by Vivien possible — that is, through their 
love, with all its faithfulness, the lust of the flesh stole in, 
and the whole of society was corrupted. Again and again 
is this point made by Tennyson. No matter how seeming 
fair an unlicensed love may be, no matter how faithful and 
deep, it ends in opening to others the door to sensuality, 
which itself has no faithfulness, no depth, and no enduring 
beauty. Guinevere is followed by Vivien, and Lancelot by 
Tristram."* 

*• Brooke's Tennyson. 208-9. 



Guinevere 103 

The poet puts into the mouth of Arthur another ethical 
message for his generation, a message concerning the duty 
of the husband whose wife is false. He makes Arthur to 
say to Guinevere, 

"I hold that man the worst of public foes 
Who either for his own or children's sake, 
To save his blood from scandal, lets his wife 
Whom he knows false abide and rule the house : 
For being through his cowardice allowed 
Her station, taken everywhere for pure, 
She, like a new disease, unknown to men, 
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd, 
Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps 
The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse 
With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young/' 

[509-519. 

He cannot take her back to his heart and hearth, she can- 
not be to him what she was before, he cannot touch her 
lips, he cannot take her hand, she cannot be to him as 
wife. But still he loves her and forgives her and tries to 
redeem her. He does not cast her off forever, but prom- 
ises that when she becomes pure again she may return to 
him once more. That could not be in this world, for 
Arthur is going to his doom. But, says he, 

"Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, 
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ, 
Hereafter in that world where all are pure 
We, too, may meet before high God, and thou 
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know 
I am thine husband." 

[558-563. 



104 Guinevere 

The poem teaches that it is our duty and privilege to 
love the highest, Arthur is the embodiment of the Christ 
character, he is "the highest" which Guinevere failing to 
recognize as such failed to love. As long as she looked at 
him through the eyes of Sense she could not know him as 
the highest. But when in Almsbury, through tears of re- 
pentance, she looked upon him with the eyes of Soul, she 
recognized the highest and loved him. And then she saw 
her fatal mistake, and exclaimed, 

"Ah, my God, 
What might I not have made of thy fair world, 
Had I but loved thy highest creature here ? 
It was my duty to have loved the highest ; 
It surely was my profit had I known ; 
It would have been my pleasure had I seen. 
We needs must love the highest when we see it." 

[549-555. 

So we may say of Christ, "the highest, holiest manhood." 
It is our duty to love Him, for He is our rightful 
Lord. It is our profit also to love Him, for He abundantly 
rewards us and He Himself is our exceeding great reward. 
When we learn to love Him, we find it our highest pleasure, 
too. And when we come to know Him, when we see Him 
with spiritual eyes, "We needs must Jove the Highest." 

Arthur's love for Guinevere illustrates Christ's love for 
the sinful soul. When Arthur knew her guilt, he did not 
cease to love her. He loathed her sin, but the woman he 
still loved. Said he, 

"Think not, though thou wouldst not love thy lord, 
Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee. 

• ■ • • • 

T505-6. 



GUIKEVERE 105 

My love through flesh hath wrought unto my life 

So far that my doom is, I love thee still. 

Let no man dream but that I love thee still." 

[555-7. 

And it was his love and the knowledge of his love that 
awoke love in her heart for him. And love wrought re- 
pentance, and repentance brought salvation. And in the 
humble service of the cloister, in prayers and fastings and 
almsgiving and helpful ministrations, she passed the re- 
maining years of her life till she passed to that world where 
all is peace and into the loving arms of her lord. So Christ 
loves us. Though we forsake Him and are false to Him 
and pollute our souls with sin, He loves us still. And 
when we believe His love and see it, it begets love in our 
hearts, and love begets repentance and faith. And He 
holds out to us the promise that if we purify our souls, 
then "in that world where all are pure" we shall meet Him 
and claim Him as our own. Thus his hope becomes our 
hope, and we can say in the words of Guinevere, 

"Blessed be the King, who hath forgiven 
My wickedness to Him, and left me hope 
That in my own heart I can live down sin 
And be His mate hereafter in the heavens 
Before high God \" 

[629-633. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE PASSING OF AETHUE; THE LAST BATTLE 
AND THE FINAL VICTOEY OF THE SOUL. 

And the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, 

And on the mere the wailing died away. 

****** 

■ 

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
Even to the highest he could climb, and saw, 
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
Or thought he saw, the speck that bear the King, 
Down that long water opening on the deep 
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
From less to less and vanish into light, 
And the new sun rose bringing the new year. 

The story is drawing to a close. Arthur is driving Mod- 
red and his allies towards the western sea. Camping at 
night, Bedivere, keeping guard, hears the King moaning in 
his tent. Here we see again the struggle with doubt. 
Arthur is fighting the battle in his own soul. He is grap- 
pling with the old, old problem of evil. And he says to 
himself, 

"I found Him in the shining of the stars, 
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields, 
But in His ways with men I find Him not. 

106 



The Passing of Arthur 107 

I waged His wars and now I pass and die. 
me ! for why is all around us here 
As if some lesser God had made the world, 
But had not force to shape it as he would, 
Till the High God behold it from beyond, 
And enter it, and make it beautiful ?" 

[9-17. 

The evil that is in the world, aye, the evil in his own realm, 
the guilt of his wife, the faithlessness and treachery of his 
knights, the shattering of his fair dream, the disruption of 
his realm, — why does God allow this? Does this evil exist 
because God does not care, or is it because He is powerless 
to prevent? Or is it because, as the gnostics taught, that 
the world was made by some lesser god, a demiurge, who 
had not power to make it better ? This is a dilemma which 
confronts every thoughtful soul. How shall we account 
for the evil in the world? Is it due to lack of power or 
lack of goodness on the part of the Creator? Faith re- 
fuses to take either horn of the dilemma, but answers with 
Arthur, 

"Or else as if the world were wholly fair, 
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, 
And have not power to see it as it is — 
Perchance because we see not to the close." 

[18-21. 

Is not this the best solvent of the doubt, the best solution 
of the problem of evil? If we could see the world as it 
really is, see "the best that glimmers through the worst," 
see "the soul of good in evil things," see all the conse- 
quences of events, read to the end of the chapter, then 
might we find that "the world were wholly fair," that the 



108 The Passing of Arthur 

All-powerful is the All-good, as Browning declares "the 
All-great were the All-loving, too." 

The great battle has been fought, and both armies anni- 
hilated. Modred has been slain, and Arthur sorely- 
wounded. Of all his knights only Bedivere remains. Ex- 
calibur has struck its last blow, and the time has come for 
it to be cast away. Given to King Arthur by the Lady of 
the Lake, it must now be returned to her. Realizing that 
the time of his departure is near, the King says to Bedi- 
vere, 

"But now delay not ; take Excalibur, 

And fling him far into the middle mere; 

Watch what thou seest and lightly bring me word." 

[204-6. 

Bedivere takes the brand and descends to the lake with full 
purpose to obey the behest. But when he unsheathes the 
sword, and gazes upon its glittering blade and jeweled haft, 
he is tempted to disobey the King. He hesitates, then con- 
cludes to hide the sword among the flags, and strides 
slowly back to the King. Arthur is not deceived, but re- 
proaches him and sends him back to do what he had been 
bidden. Again Bedivere dallies with the temptation, sup- 
ports it with specious reasoning, sets his judgment above 
that of the King, and ends by disobeying the second time. 
Then the King, angry, orders him the third time to throw 
the sword into the lake. And he goes quickly and seizes 
the sword, and shuts his eyes lest the gems blind his pur- 
pose, and throws it. And lo ! a wondrous sight ! For out 
of the bosom of the lake rises a mystic arm and catches the 
sword by the hilt, brandishes it three times, and draws it 
under the water. This struggle of Bedivere is a picture 
of temptation, of the conflict of the soul with the tempta- 
tion to disobedience. As he was tempted to disobey the 



The Passing of Arthur 109 

King, so we are constantly tempted to disobey our Lord. 
We do not see the reason for His command ; we ask, "What 
good shall follow this, if this were done?" We set our 
judgment above His command. Is not this a temptation 
which comes to every one? When it comes let us remem- 
ber that it is "Deep harm to disobey, seeing obedience 
is the bond of rule." Let us remember that loyalty re- 
quires unquestioning obedience to our King, and that only 
unfaltering obedience will win for us the commendation, 
"Well done." When the great King gives an order to his 
soldiers it should be 

Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do or die. 

But there is yet another struggle for the bold Bedivere. 
He must do battle with Giant Despair. When he has car- 
ried Arthur down to the sea and placed him on the barge, 
and realizes that his King is going away, and that all their 
glorious dream is shattered, despair seizes him and he 
utters his lament ; 

"Ah! my lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
From now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And* every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light that led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the years, 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

[395-406. 



110 The Passing of Arthur 

Many a soul has battled with a similar despair. Jeremiah 
and his compatriots contended with it when they saw the 
power and glory of their kingdom pass away and the people 
led into captivity. The Greeks suffered it when their na- 
tional independence was lost and their liberties were taken 
from them. The Saxons felt it on that fateful day of St. 
Calixtus, when the Saxon battle-axes went down before the 
Norman spears, and their power was broken. The South- 
erners were overwhelmed by it when at Appomattox Court 
House their commander surrendered, and the Stars and 
Bars went down before the Stars and Stripes, and the old 
regime passed away. The Disciples fought with it when 
they saw their Lord crucified and it seemed His kingdom 
was buried in the Aramathean's tomb. You and I have 
battled with it when we have seen our fairest hopes shat- 
tered and our plans thwarted and the whole order of our 
lives changed. Every pilgrim on the road to the Promised 
Land must do battle with Giant Despair. 

Arthur's answer reveals the greatness of his character 
and the wideness of his vision. He has conquered doubt, 
and found God "in His ways with men." And now as he 
departs he looks back upon the ruin of his realm and says 
to Bedivere, 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 

And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

[408-410. 

History is one long commentary upon this saying. The 
old order is constantly changing, yielding place to the new, 
and in the new God fulfills His purposes, and makes all 
work together for good. The Hebrews became greater in 
their dispersion than in their golden age. The national 
downfall of the Greeks assured their intellectual suprem- 



The Passing of Arthur 111 

acy and made them a blessing to all the world. The field 
of Senlac was the renascence of the English nation, the 
Norman conquest was the beginning of a new order of 
greater power and higher life in Britain. The expatria- 
tion of the Puritans and Pilgrims was the beginning of a 
new nation. The destruction of the old regime in the 
Southern States was followed by a new regime of greater 
prosperity and higher ideals. The old order of the per- 
sonal visible ministry of Jesus was changed to yield place 
to the wider invisible spiritual ministry. He must need3 
go away that He might come again in greater power. He 
must ascend into heaven that He might be Lord of the 
whole earth. 

Bedivere had coveted Excalibur, but Arthur tells him of 
a better weapon for the Soul in its warfare with Sense, — 
the sword of prayer; 

"Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nournish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend. 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

[415-423. 

This is the word of St. James : "The supplication of a 
righteous man availeth much in its working." It is the 
word of St. Paul: "Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; 
in everything give thanks." It is the word of Jesus, "that 
they ought always to pray, and not to faint." To pray is 
human, not to pray is bestial. The prayerless life is no 



113 The Passing of Arthur 

better than the life of the beasts. Nor is the effect of 
prayer subjective only, it moves the heart of God. It is 

A breath that fleets beyond this iron world 
And touches Him that made it. 

[Tennyson's Harold. 

It is a means of communion with God. It is a bond of 
union with God. Milton conceived the World to be sus- 
pended from heaven by a golden chain; Tennyson repre- 
sents prayer as the golden chain by which the Earth is 
bound about the feet of God. 

The passing of Arthur is a beautiful allegory of death. 
His friend Bedivere carried him to the shore of the sea, 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
Beneath them ; and descending they were Vare 
That all the decks were dense with stately forms, 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — by these 
Three queens with crowns of gold — and from them rose 
A cry that shivered to the tingling stars. 

Then murmured Arthur, "Place me on the barge." 
So to the barge they came. Then those three queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
But she that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest laid his head upon her lap. 

[361-376. 

. . . And the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. 

[434-438. 



The Passing of Arthur 113 

The sea is the great deep of Eternity from which the Soul 
comes and to which it goes. The dark barge is death, com- 
ing like a ship to carry the Soul away from the shores of 
Time. The stately forms on deck are the ministering 
spirits from the other world, who bear the Soul company on 
its voyage. And the three queens who put forth their 
hands and took the King are Faith, and Hope, and Love, 
the Graces who befriend the Soul and Cf help him at his 
need." 

The island-valley of Avilion, 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea, — 

[427-431. 

this is Heaven. And there at last Soul is crowned victor 
over Sense. As Bedivere stood on a lofty crag watching 
the vanishing ship, 

Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world, 
Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
Around a king returning from his wars. 

[457-461. 



The End 



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